NipPierce Wow, this is a REALLY bad movie!

Hottoceame The Age of Commercialism

BoardChiri Bad Acting and worse Bad Screenplay

Jonah Abbott There's no way I can possibly love it entirely but I just think its ridiculously bad, but enjoyable at the same time.

De-illusionist I'd better to say I might be biased.I'm not "Hey,this is killer!"person. And here,Herzog met MIchael,28 yrs old kid,just lost his father 2 weeks before, and facing imminent execution.Some people found his laugh ,like "Sick"or "Psychopath".No,It was,Human's defense system. Even cats purr when he/she is dying. I've read one of recent executed inmate was so Hyper the morning he will be executed.(RIP..) People sometime laugh,depends of individual, when he/she knows his/her heart will stop by some chemical injected. It's not they're Psychopath,but just showing the are human. (Translated review I wrote for Amazon.jp years ago,and added new info)

tomgillespie2002 In 2001, teenagers Michael Perry and Jason Burkett were arrested and charged with a triple-homicide shortly after an intense shootout with the police. They were convicted of murdering 50-year old nurse Sandra Stotler, her sixteen year old son Adam, and his friend Jeremy Richardson. They shot and killed Sandra with a shotgun in her garage so they could steal her valuable red Camaro, and later murdered the two teenagers to obtain the keys to the gate of their middle-class community estate. As a result, Perry was sentenced to die by lethal injection, and Burkett was given a life sentence.Just how one culprit can be slated to die while the other gets to spend their life behind bars for the same crime is just one of the many questions raised in Werner Herzog's objective documentary on capital punishment. We meet Perry early on, child-like and God- fearing, just 8 days before he is due to die. During this meeting, Herzog reveals his own feelings about the death penalty (he's strictly against it) and even tells the inmate that he doesn't like him very much, but that he also respects everyone's humanity and point of view. The film is not a condemnation of Death Row, but a meditation, and Herzog simply sits back and allows the story to tell itself through interviews from all sides and sporadic narration.Although it does cover the crime itself in detail, Into the Abyss is not a re-investigation, but tells the story of the horrifying events back in 2001 juxtaposed with interviews from 2010 to allow us to make up our own mind and absorb the devastating affects such an act of brutality can cause. The most heart-breaking moment comes from the interview with Burkett's father, a prisoner himself, as he comes to terms with his own role in his son's fate. We learn of the events that attributed to his boy's character and eventual destiny, and wonder if society failed him. We then see how the crime left Sandra Stotler's daughter completely alone in life, and wonder why such a monster like Burkett should be allowed to live. You may find yourself discussing the topic in depth afterwards, but on hearing Perry's final words to the victim's families before he was given a lethal dose, I could not bring myself to believe that watching him die would ever bring them inner peace.

Tcarts76 "Into the Abyss," is a documentary film by Werner Herzog, about a young man sitting on Texas's deathrow, awaiting execution for killing a woman and 2 other young men so that they could steal a car.This is a clear propaganda piece by Herzog where he tries to draw attention to the left-wing ideal of getting rid of the death penalty. The fact is he continued paint the picture of boys from the wrong side of the tracks, who only committed murder because of their poor upbringing, lack of education, and American gun owning society. One interview he even pushed someone from the town to go on about his lack of education and the fact that until recently learned how to read. Come on Herzog! Not being able to read doesn't have any effect on knowing what is right or wrong.Then he went on to talk to a former bar employee who knew the murderers and even road in the stolen vehicle, and it was clear that the only footage he wanted was the part where she said that over the years she saw a lot of bad things happen. He also interviews one of the fathers of the murderers who is also serving a sentence for murder. Herzog gets the father to weave a tale about his failings as a father and that was the cause of all this. Notice also I did not mention anyone of the killers because a triple murder does not deserve to ever be mentioned!This is clearly a hard left-wing, social democrat push vehicle. It is an attempt to show how horrible the U.S. is, our education system, our gun rights. It does everything leftists and socialists always do, They try to paint everyone as a victim, and shouldn't have to face any responsibility for anything. The fact is a life sentence is much more of a cruel and unusual punishment than the death penalty, and what people forget is that the U.S. became the superpower it is BECAUSE we don't follow in the footsteps of Europe's Left leaning policies.All in all, this is a contrite, transparent, and condescending documentary. I am sure Werner Herzog got plenty of pats on the back for his effort, but next time he should stay and do more documentaries in and around Europe. 2 out of 10

tieman64 "Into the Abyss", a documentary by Werner Herzog, tells the tale of Michael James Perry and James Aaron Burkett, two teenagers responsible for murdering Texas housewife Sandra Stotler. They wanted the keys to her car. She lived in a gated community. They lived outside. The film's subtitled "A Tale of Death, a Tale of Life", partly because Perry was sentenced to death whilst Burkett was given life imprisonment, partly because Herzog is interested in how the social conditions of these two young men – their lives – resulted in them becoming avatars of death.Burkett's father, also serving a life sentence, is himself responsible for getting his son off the death penalty. He tells his son's jurors a sad tale in which he blames himself and his life decisions for essentially "forging" his son into a murderer. Herzog's film is similarly preoccupied with questions of social conditioning, determinism, free-will and indeterminism; how accountable are these two boys? The film is bookended by men of faith. It opens on Texan chaplain who accompanies prisoners to the lethal injection chair. Herzog surrounds the man with gravestones and unclaimed bodies. The film ends with the moving testimony of Fred Allen. A death row executioner, Fred resigned after 120 executions. He couldn't take the grim morbidity of it all. We later learn that Texas governor George Bush, America's favourite war criminal, executed a record breaking 152 men. Allen says he's learnt to live for the "dash" - that line between the birth and death dates on one's gravestone.Herzog interviews the killers. While he sympathises with them, he outright states to the camera that he doesn't like one; the kid's dangerous. Trust Herzog's instincts. Other interviews are conducted with family members and two relatives of Sarah. Interestingly, Burkett's girlfriend was inseminated by him whilst he was in jail. Herzog recognises her instantly as a death-row groupie. She's a hybristophiliac. A person who's sexually aroused and attracted to people who have committed cruel, gruesome crimes. Hybristophilia, a very rare paraphilia, occurs more frequently in women than men. Herzog picks up on certain traits right away, but avoids offending the woman. It's clear she has rescue fantasies, is delusional and is perhaps a narcissistic enabler, attracted to power or was perhaps abused in the past. Herzog doesn't pry. Hybristophiliacs are drawn to fame and notoriety. Biologists, using tests with monkeys, say some are attracted to the perceived masculinity of violence. Whatever the truth, like everyone else in "Abyss", this character hints at dark baggage.The film strongly resembles Truman Capote's "In Cold Blood", but is less focused, more shapeless and is ultimately one of Herzog weaker documentaries. It's largely a routine picture, but Herzog does finds some nice visuals here and there, like a brief shot of a tree growing up through an abandoned car; Nature finds a way, manages to penetrate everything, leaving behind wreckage. Other scenes are extremely touching. Consider one in which a chaplain likens the preciousness of life to the ease at which a squirrel may be run over by a car. One bad choice, one mistake, and life, so very fragile, quickly goes off the tracks. The "abyss" of the film's title conjures up a range of meanings. Perhaps it refers to the dark void of death, the horror of murder (state sanctioned or otherwise), the cavernous Texan execution chambers, or perhaps the tough, hopeless conditions of subterranean Texas, a breeding ground for crime. Elsewhere it's clear that Herzog is leading this documentary toward his very own, rigid aims. More fiction than documentary, Herzog has the ability to almost will or lead those he interviews into saying exactly what he wants. Observe early scenes in which Herzog speaks about unclaimed bodies and how effortlessly he gets characters to imply for him that social dysfunction perpetuates itself. It's an arrow aimed at the very God these Texans proudly adhere to: there is no "divinity" allowing these men to die, just men.With his distinct Bavarian drawl and incessant metaphysical musings, Herzog's long become a parody of himself. You've got to love him, though. This is a guy who manages to turn drunk penguins and dancing chickens into existential statements. In "Into the Abyss" he matter-of-factly looks at a prison chaplain and says "tell me about an encounter with a squirrel", as though this sentence is a perfectly ordinary. In Herzog's defence, such odd lines of enquiry are designed to tease out the absurd and do often lead interesting places. What emerges in "Into the Abyss" is less a condemnation of the death penalty than a condemnation of a society which engenders cross-generational suffering and breeds social dysfunction. Like the squirrel's food, it's all very nuts.7.9/10 - Very weak Herzog, but with 3 powerful sequences. Worth one viewing.