Michaels claims his legitimacy in the film by taking some time to besmirch other tour guides with his concept that a guide's own desire to be a famous actor is inversely proportional to how many facts they get right. This fact is made abundantly clear during the first 15 minutes of the film, which are devoted to Michaels' life story and proud show-and-tell of his morbid Hollywood memorabilia collection. That is because Six Degrees of Helter Skelter was directed by and stars a Hollywood tour guide, Dearly Departed Tours owner, Scott Michaels. The whole documentary is lead like a Hollywood tour. For an unabridged explanation of Manson's interpretation of Helter Skelter, click here. In a nutshell, Manson did believe the Beatles knew about the end of the world, which he called 'Helter Skeleter,' but he did not believe that they were the ones 'bringing it down.' Helter Skelter was what Manson believed to be an inevitable race war.

I could not believe that within the first 7 minutes of a documentary there would be such blatant misrepresentation of facts. The dictionary definition of helter skelter is cited, and then juxtaposed this with what the narrator deemed would be Charles Manson's definition: 'The end of the world brought on by the Beatles.' The film starts unfortunately, with an opening line that let me know I was going to be disappointed. This is about the 2009 documentary Six Degrees of Helter Skelter, which explores the actual sites of the crimes committed by, and residences of the Manson Family. Though, this isn't about the book, Helter Skelter.

Written by Vincent Bugliosi, prosecutor during the Manson trials, the novel follows the Manson Family and their victims in exquisite detail, leading them into their final collisions. This is the kind of opening line that lets you know you're not going to put the book down. 'It was so quiet, one of the killers would later say, you could almost hear the sound of ice rattling in cocktail shakers in the homes way down the canyon.' Helter Skelter: The True Story of The Mason Murders has the best opening line in a book I've ever read:

What did helter skelter mean to manson