Helter Skelter
Warner Home Video, $19.99
It’s “disorderly confusion” to Merriam-Webster’s. In 1969 it became about kids committing vicious crimes because some guy told them to. Nixon was president. Crooks abounded with blisters on their fingers.
History repeats itself, and Helter Skelter is “in” again. Just in time for CBS’s May 16 airing of the remake, Warner has released on DVD Vincent Bugliosi’s original 1976 Helter Skelter, the most-watched TV miniseries before Roots.
Helter Skelter is district attorney Bugliosi’s legal philosophizing about the 1969 “big time dope murders” of Sharon Tate and five others in Beverly Hills. Why would prom queens commit the grisliest acts at the whim of a short, creepy prostitute’s son? Since Manson didn’t actually kill, how do you prosecute conspiracy?
While the DVD lacks any extras, the cleaned-up reissue is still worth it. TV movies aren’t made like this anymore. Helter Skelter is campy true crime: an overextended let’s-get-those-dirty-hippies CHiPs, with violins and Seventies-era zoom. It’s jarring to see such heavy subject matter treated in near blacksploitation style. Charlie’s “angels” are portrayed as sexy Sadies who describe murder like last night’s heavy petting. One peculiar scene lingers on three male cops disrobing jovially together in an automobile. All this made for TV?
And it’s not just Steve Railsback’s crazy eyes that are scary. The anti-counterculture propaganda is pretty thick. The scare tactics are so obvious that the ultimate impression is like something from Jesus Christ Superstar, unintentionally feeding Manson’s own claims. You even begin to wonder if it’s so ironic that Manson was first arrested for the destruction of an “earth-moving machine.”
Set to a Beatles soundtrack that would be impossible today, the bloodshed was part of an era where music made a difference, good or bad. Helter Skelter has an odd nostalgic effect with a strange sense of urgency – something like discovering your parents’ album collection as you realize the world is collapsing. If nothing else, you’ll be listening to The White Album again, piggy.
This article appears in May 14 • 2004.