A Formula For Morbid Success

Every now and then, a new film project is announced that screams "Matt Barone will fucking love this!" as if from the top of a mountain, holding a megaphone, hooked into a kick-ass speaker/sound system, yelled by ten Eliza Dushku clones dressed in skimpy two-piecers.

Case in point: "Oscar nominee Michael Shannon, Willem Dafoe, Chloe Sevigny and Udo Kier have signed on to Werner Herzog and David Lynch's first collaboration, the psychological horror tale My Son, My Son, What Have Ye Done....Herzog is directing the film which will commence principal photography in the California locale of Coronado Island in March. Eric Bassett is producing and Lynch serves as executive producer. Lynch regular Grace Zabriskie also stars.....The story is loosely based on events surrounding a San Diego man who acted out a Sophocles play in his mind and murdered his mother with a sword....'I always wanted to make a horror film, but not with bloody axes and chain-saws," Herzog said, adding: "An anonymous fear should rather creep up at you.'"

My Son, My Son, What Have Ye Done = strangely-awesome title


Sure, his contribution here will be little more than "mostly hands-off producer," but who cares. Nobody working in Hollywood can make a film that pisses me off, fascinates me, leaves me feverishly questioning why I like it so much, and blows my mind out the water like David Lynch. So, he earns "picture included" rights here.

Let's see here: David Lynch is involved; it's a horror film directed by a highly-acclaimed and proven-great filmmaker; stars creepy-character-actor-extraordinaire Michael Shannon (who has always struck me as a dude tailor-made to be in a David Lynch film); and the plot is deliciously dark and devoid of any possible happy places.

If this comes out and doesn't make it to my year-end best-of list, no matter what year it hits, I'll be more surprised and speechless than Katie Couric was while interviewing Lil "I Can't Be Media Trained" Wayne.

***Just 'cause I've got Lynch films on the brain now, let's enjoy some of the man's work, shall we? From first and last.....

Scene from Eraserhead (1977):


One of the many scenes/images from 2006's Inland Empire that had my mind scrambling while seated in the IFC Theater; what a bizarre, unsettling, unforgettable experience that was:


Don't even bothering asking "What the hell is going on?" for either one. It's futile. You don't "fully comprehend" a Lynch flick, you "submissively experience" it.

News of My Son, My Son, What Have Ye Done spotted (earlier today) over at: Screen Daily