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If not for director Werner Herzog's name in the credits, and his thick German accent in the interviews, you'd be hard-pressed to differentiate "Into the Abyss" from any of a thousand like-minded prison documentaries on cable TV. (In fact, it was financed by Discovery Channel's sister network, ID.)
Herzog examines the case of Michael James Perry, convicted of a triple murder in Conroe, Texas, and sentenced to die. Besides interviewing Perry on death row (eight days before his execution on July 1, 2010), Herzog interviews others touched by the case: relatives of the victims (nurse Sandra Stotler, her son Adam and his friend Jeremy Richardson), law officers who investigated the killings, and Perry's cohort James Burkett, who's serving a life sentence for his part in the crimes.
The most compelling interviews are with Burkett's wife, Melyssa, who met him in prison and became pregnant (the details of how, since conjugal visits are not allowed, are left a mystery), and with Fred Allen, who quit as captain of the Huntsville, Texas, prison Death House after overseeing more than 100 executions and one day deciding he had enough.
Herzog, without discussing his opposition to capital punishment, quietly lets his interview subjects explore the issues of the death penalty's unfairness — why was Perry executed and Burkett spared? — and the pain it inflicts on those who carry it out in the state's (and, by extension, our) name. —
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'Into the Abyss'
Opens Friday, Dec. 16 at the Broadway Centre Cinemas; rated PG-13 for mature thematic material and some disturbing images; 107 minutes.