Late last week we posted first-look pictures of German director Werner Herzog’s lo-fi horror of sorts, called “My Son, My Son, What Have Ye Done” premiering at this year’s Toronto International Film Festival (in addition, the festival will also feature Herzog’s “Bad Lieutenant: Port Of Call New Orleans,” starring Nic Cage; dude has been prolific).
Now the trailer has arrived and boy this thing is weird. David Lynch produced this picture that stars Michael Shannon, Willem Dafoe, Chloe Sevigny, Udo Kier, Grace Zabriskie and Michael Pena (among others) and it sports the lo-fi digi look of his “Inland Empire,” and also looks like it has some fairly Lynch-ian deadpan humor. Either that or this trailer is just a little bit corny. Here’s the synopsis once again.
Inspired by true events, My Son, My Son, What Have Ye Done, is a story of ancient myth and modern madness. Brad Macallam (Michael Shannon), an aspiring actor performing in a Greek tragedy, commits the crime he is to enact in the play by killing his mother (Grace Zabriskie). The mystery unfolds in a series of flashbacks displaying the psychological destruction of the killer set off by an ill-fated white-water kayaking trip in a distant land.
Hmm, what do you think? Every line that Michael Shannon delivers in this thing is unintentionally hilarious; like something you’d hear in the Red Room of “Twin Peaks.” Sure, it’s that weird delivery that works in Lynch movies, but it reads and sounds pretty off in trailers. Also the Made-for-TV narration and the generic-looking horror titles and fonts are a strange touch too. The whole aesthetic seems off. It’s weird how a Werner Herzog films seems like such a David Lynch film even though the former is directing (or is he?). That doesn’t mean we’re not looking forward too it. It looks like it’ll have the bizarre loopiness of both directors, but the trailer is decidedly odd. The picture will appear sometime at the Toronto Film Festival that runs September 10-19.