My Summer Lair Chapter #187: How Much Do You Know About Charles Manson vs How Much Do You Think You Know?

We’re going dark for this My Summer Lair episode so get ready: it’s gonna be like exploring a black hole as if it was a cave.

Helter Skelter: An American Myth is like The Last Dance but like for Charles Manson. And I know it’s a terrible comparison but it’s accurate: it is a sociological and anthropological dig. It is archeology to understand sociology.

Think about it: it’s been 4 years since we visited Charles Manson in prison in Fincher’s Mindhunter. And it’s been 2 years since we witnessed the twisted Tinsel Town Terror of the Manson Family in Tarantino’s fairy tale Once Upon A Time…In Hollywood. And it’s been less than a year when Epix (in America) broadcast Helter Skelter: An American Myth on July 26, 2020.

That date was selected as it recognized it’s been 50 years since the grisly murder of Sharon Tate, Jay Sebring, and several others.

The 6 episode docuseries chronicles the Manson Family history, with the classic never-before-accessed interviews from former family members and journalists coupled with archival footage and newly-unearthed images. It’s stunning.

You know Lesley Chilcott as the producer on such documentaries as An Inconvenient Truth and it’s sequel as well as Waiting for Superman and It Might Get Loud: all fantastic work. This time for Helter Skelter she’s the executive producer and director behind this dramatic docuseries.

In Canada Helter Skelter premiered on February 11, 2021 on Hollywood Suite. Check the On Demand channel. Highly Recommended Viewing.

All this prompts the obvious question: this is past tense right? Something this dark couldn’t happen today right? That’s a good place to start my conversation with Lesley Chilcott.

Lesley Chicott @ W • T • F

Host Sammy Younan

Recorded: Monday February 8, 2021 at 5pm EST