Into the Abyss

Herzog’s goal isn’t to convince an appeals board to reopen the case—if it is, he’s failed utterly—but to understand the death penalty from every angle, satisfying another curiosity in a career compelled by them.

A haunting portrayal of people who are neither completely innocent nor wholly evil, and the terrible price of killing...

For something with such a morbid draw, Into the Abyss leaves you startled by life.

...laments the fallout from cold-blooded carnage with a keen, meditative strength.

The wider fascination here is in the stories that arise naturally from the subjects, largely told without self-pity, in a part of America startlingly packed with crime, prison, sudden death and unwavering belief in God.