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My Son, My Son, What Have Ye Done

Play trailer Poster for My Son, My Son, What Have Ye Done R 2009 1h 33m Drama Horror Play Trailer Watchlist
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51% Tomatometer 41 Reviews 44% Popcornmeter 2,500+ Ratings
A man experiences mystifying events that cause him to kill his mother with a sword.
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My Son, My Son, What Have Ye Done

My Son, My Son, What Have Ye Done

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Critics Consensus

Enigmatic and digressive, this mystical potboiler possesses director Werner Herzog's penchant for offbeat atmosphere, but lacks the absurdist humor and profundity that makes his previous trips into madness compelling.

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Critics Reviews

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J. R. Jones Chicago Reader 01/03/2011
What they deliver is the sort of fake mysticism that usually ensues when secular intellectuals try to plumb the depths of religious faith. Go to Full Review
Marc Lee Daily Telegraph (UK) 09/10/2010
3/5
Oddly understated, it's nevertheless as unnerving a vision of disintegration in suburbia as you'd expect from director Werner Herzog and producer David Lynch. Go to Full Review
Xan Brooks Guardian 09/09/2010
3/5
My Son, My Son, What Have Ye Done finds God in a cereal box and Satan on an ostrich farm. Go to Full Review
Brian Eggert Deep Focus Review 08/09/2023
3.5/4
The result feels like Herzog handed his camera and script to Shannon’s character Brad and let him direct. Go to Full Review
Monika Bartyzel Collider 04/10/2018
What results is a very theatrical world of quirk and weirdness that's too real to thrive in the weird, and too weird to thrive in the real. Just try to imagine Herzog in Lynch's world, and vice versa, and you might begin to envision this awkward world. Go to Full Review
Jeffrey Chen ReelTalk Movie Reviews 09/25/2010
6/10
The version of madness displayed by [Michael Shannon's] Brad is not typically dramatic; it's mostly just strange, and dances the line bordering on goofiness. Go to Full Review
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Audience Reviews

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Jelisije J 4d If you want to watch the journey of a mentally challenged individual and his fall from grace then this film is for you. See more Ken B 08/30/2023 Did everyone completely really miss the main thrust of this film? The terrible generational curse of the House of Atreus portrayed in the Greek tragedy of the Oresteia trilogy! They only rehearse portions of it over and over and over for us... Mix that with his Peruvian experience, what ever it was, and his bible visions. Yes, it does't quite match the horror of the Greek matricide of the original, but don't criticize if you're not going to at least consider those many references to the Greek tragedy. Perhaps a more powerful evocation of the impact of Greek tragedy to a modern audience is "A Dream of Passion" with Ellen Burstyn and Melina Mercouri. In Athens, an American woman (Burstyn) murders her 3 children because her husband is having an affair. A Greek actress (Mercouri) is producing Euripides' "Medea" (who murders her children) for the BBC. The plot is involved, but the film ends with a scene of the play's production at the ancient theater at the site of the sanctuary of Apollo in Delphi. Acted entirely in Greek, the viewer nonetheless experiences some of the horror the original Greek audience would have. See more 09/06/2016 A different take on a hostage situation, with the flashbacks just making Brad (Shannon) look even crazier. No real rhyme or reason to anything in the film, with it seeming to be weird for the sake of Herzog's whims - staring into the camera, frozen, for 30sec at a time, a score that doesn't fit, flamingos and ostriches... Also a waste of Dafoe's talents - felt long @ 87min. See more 03/13/2016 The worst of geniouses Lynch and Herzog. Mental illness of boredom. See more 09/30/2015 This rough picture flits from mockumentary to weirdness that borders on self-parody. The few glimpses of dark beauty couldn't save a rushed and mediocre thriller. See more 04/11/2015 It does not really work, but I would take a flawed Herzog film over most good films. Michael Shannon is perfectly cast. I'm not sure if that is a good thing, but it is true. See more Read all reviews
My Son, My Son, What Have Ye Done

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Movie Info

Synopsis A man experiences mystifying events that cause him to kill his mother with a sword.
Director
Werner Herzog
Producer
Eric Bassett
Screenwriter
Herbert Golder, Werner Herzog
Distributor
Unified Pictures
Production Co
Industrial Entertainment, deFilm, Paper Street Films
Rating
R (Some Language)
Genre
Drama, Horror
Original Language
English
Release Date (Theaters)
Dec 11, 2009, Original
Release Date (Streaming)
Nov 30, 2016
Runtime
1h 33m
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