Documentary

Into the Abyss

DocumentaryCrimeDrama

Conversations with death row inmate Michael Perry and those affected by his crime serve as an examination of why people - and the state - kill.

Year

2012

Duration

1h 47m

IMDb

7.3

Trailer

Cast

Werner Herzog

Director

Werner Herzog

Self - Narrator

RL

Richard Lopez

Self - Death House Chaplin

Michael Perry

Self - Death Row Inmate

Damon Hall

Self - Montgomery County Sheriff's Department

Lisa Stolter-Balloun

Self - Daughter and Sister to Victims

CR

Charles Richardson

Self - Older Brother of Jeremy

Jason Burkett

Self - Convicted Murderer

Jared Talbert

Self - Citizen of Conroe Texas

AW

Amanda West

Self - Former Bartender

Delbert Burkett

Self - Jason Burkett's Father

Melyssa Thompson-Burkett

Self - Jason Burkett's Wife

Fred Allen

Self - Former Captain pf Death House Team

Werner Herzog

Writer

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Comments

10 comments

Salah G. HamedNov 28, 2025

Wan Soloist'Nov 28, 2025

Diane RussetNov 28, 2025

Khandy NarteyAug 22, 2024

I'm not familiar with Werner Herzog or his work, and had never heard of him prior to this film. I started watching 'Into the Abyss' expecting a peak into the life of a death row inmate, as well as hearing the tale of a horrible crime and its back round. I was utterly disappointed. The problem with this film is that it manages to make a story about capital punishment boring. At peak moments Herzog touches some interesting issues, but does not explore them. In the end I felt unsatisfied, like a big part of the story was wasted. I still think this movie is worth watching, one just must not expect a flaming and intense debate on this matter. This film offers more a general humanitarian view.

JanemenaAug 22, 2024

Into the Abyss is Herzogs most haunting piece since his 1979 remake of Nosferatu and to me, it would appear to be his most personal work to date. Herzog has always been an outspoken warrior against capitol punishment, so I assumed this would be preachy, overstated, and direct. To my surprise this is one of the most understated documentaries on death row inmates and those around them I have ever had the pleasure of watching. Centering around the homicides committed by two Texas youths over a car in the early 2000's and the consequences felt by all the people involved, Into the Abyss isn't about guilt or innocence, nor is it about wrong or right. Into the Abyss is about staring the reality of it all in the face. Herzog leaves no stone unturned as he interviews the perpetrators, the victims families, the wife and father of one of the prisoners, the prison chaplain, a series of acquaintances, the police captain, and a retired prison guard that was once the modern day equivalent of the town executioner. None of whom dwell on the deaths of those killed or the upcoming death of Micheal Perry (the inmate that was given death) but life after the events. How their worlds were effected is the topic and even though Herzog states clearly he opposes the death penalty he never harps on it. The subjects that are interviewed were obviously hand picked with care and it all amounts to an eerie retrospect on how the world misses the big picture when it comes to taking the life of another for crimes they have committed. Easily the most jaw dropping documentary of the young 2010's decade. I cant think of another film that got me so emotionally involved while seemingly dancing around the main subject. Herzog has done it again, but I cant call it triumphant. No, Into the Abyss isn't a triumph at all. It is an epic tragedy that should be watched by those both pro and anti capitol punishment.

Ángel 🫠Aug 22, 2024

Werner Herzog again manages to present real life as a badly played out drama. Full of meaningless questions, he seems to get pleasure from asking for the details like a perverted voyeur. I'm actually annoyed by the way he handled the subject and no doubt the most interesting footage is lying on the cutting room floor. There are many examples of this type of documentary. This is the worst I have seen by far. If you want an insight into a death row inmate. I highly recommend 'Fourteen days in May'.

munir AhmedAug 22, 2024

Michael Perry was a sociopath. He never took responsibility for the murders,never showed remorse and he got exactly what he deserved. He took three innocent lives because he wanted a car (I guess working for it didn't cross his mind). The bottom line of the story is: Two white trash losers from Texas make the choice to steal two cars from a family, who's son was an acquaintance of theirs. The victims where upper middle class, normal law abiding citizens. Perry and his sidekick methodically and brutally murdered a mother, her son and the son's best friend. They stole the victims cars and went to some redneck bar and gave the other white trash losers joy rides. These two give stupid a new meaning, within a week they are both caught, jailed, tried and convicted. Perry received the death penalty and for 10 years lived off the taxpayers of Texas until finally he was put to death in 2001. His family did not even have the balls to appear in the film or offer any kind of public apology to the family of the victims. The film is well done, the filmmaker is anti-death penalty and the film is slanted in that direction, however I do believe the facts were presented in an unbiased way and the viewer can make up their own minds on whether justice was done. In my opinion both men should have received the death penalty and both should be six feet under. I give the film a 7 knocking off for its slanted view on the subject.

Eum1507Aug 22, 2024

Directed by one of my favorite masters of all time, Werner Herzog, Into the Abyss is a documentary which uses a crime and the impending execution of one of its perpetrators to try and answer the question why do people and the government kill? The movie begins with a long dialogue between the director and a priest whose duty is to administer last rites to the prisoners. It becomes clear during the very first sequence that the director is intensely anti-capital punishment. Then this moves towards the crime which was the killing of three people for a particular car and how the case was made against the killers. Herzog, with his sympathetic and German accented tone, expertly interviews the killers, one of whom was executed eight days after talking to him. There are echoes of In Cold Blood in this but they don't really resonate with you. The movie is well intentioned and manages to stir you for a few times. However, it lacks any real punch. There are no great revelations and I thought that the structure of the story telling was a bit convoluted at times as if the editor had f***ed up a bit. There are better documentaries and movies on this subject and two notable mentions have to be the life of David Gale and the Thin Blue Line. This is good cinema but doesn't hold a candle to those great and life changing works of art. For me personally, this is Herzog's weakest effort. But as a documentary it is above average. 3 out of 5

VinesAug 22, 2024

The art of making a real documentary has become lost in recent years with filmmakers consistently using stylistic editing and asking questions only to prove the point there trying to make. One thing that struck me with "Into The Abyss" by Werner Herzog was how brilliantly he stayed on task of what he was trying to say. He clearly states once that he does not believe in the death penalty. The thing that impressed me the most was how he was never on screen and only asked honest and pertinent questions to all his interviewees without leading them to the answers he wanted. He probed but always let the person say exactly what they wanted to say. He never tries to excuse or romanticize the crime led the one person he interviewed to death row but is firm in his belief that capital punishment is just as much a sin as the crimes perpetrated by the death row inmates As I understand it, The United States is one of the last few developed countries that still imposes the death penalty and Texas has the highest rate of death row inmates and the lowest rate of appeals for death row inmates in the nation. While pondering that question you have to ask yourself, "why is that?" is crime being any more deterred by this, I would say no since they still have the highest rate of death row inmates even to this day. The commentary by the different people that Herzog talks too is extraordinary. The two that I found to be the best were the father Jason Burkett who is also in prison and the man who was once captain of the guard where Perry was to be executed. This mans conclusion on why the death penalty should not be used is perhaps the best and most profound. Herzog poses no enlightening statement at the end and even provides no commentary minus the questions he asks the people he interviews and this is perhaps the best way he could have approached this subject. He let's the viewer determine for themselves what they want to take away from the evidence he provides. This is a hard film to review but is a film that should be seen, and the two questions stuck with me even after the film was over, Who has the right to take another life? and, Is there a point where the taking of a life is not a sin?

Luce Oleg’sAug 22, 2024

Whenever you hear the words Death, Row and Documentary in the same sentence, you instantly know the deal – falsely accused white trash is saved by impassioned ninety minute plea of a dedicated filmmaker. You see, documentary loves the the falsely accused The system of injustice, of botched investigations, of bent cops, corrupt, careless judges and the 'man' keeping the poor, the black and the mentally ill behind bars where they belong. But not Werner Herzog. This one-man institution of documentary chucks that formula out the window. We've been taught to see the well-spoken, smiling man on death row as our beat upon, down- trodden hero, and after opening with this tried and tested device, Herzog yanks us back to the crime scene and the hero's utterly depraved and senseless brutality. So far, so new, fresh and daring; but then, twenty minutes into what could have been an incredible film, he starts meandering through the wider story, of one of the killer's incarcerated father, whose regret and life-saving courtroom plea proved the difference between life and death row, and of the town full of white trash with their own drunken bar fight war stories. It all gets a bit muddy and unfocused. For the next hour, it seems to stall, and you start hankering to see more of the killers' interview as, well, that's what sold us the ticket stub after all, but they have neither the screen time, nor the insightful comments, to really deliver on the promise of the premise. Eventually, in the closing fifteen minutes, we get a chance to really ruminate on the inhumanity of the death penalty and of loss, which ends up being rather ghastly and offering, perhaps, a sigh of relief we didn't have to endure that intensity for the full 106 minutes. An in-depth study of death row and the death penalty, sadly this is not, and while, admirably, Herzog was trying to do things differently, he really only managed to deliver a strange meandering journey through the trailer trash and gated communities of Smallville, Texas.