Chloe Sevingy and Willem Dafoe in My Son, My Son, What Have Ye Done

If you go ...

Clashing titans pack cineplexes across the country this week, but juggernauts of another variety can be found starting this Friday at the Music Box Theater, when a long-awaited collaboration between two art-house giants finally opens.

Directed by German auteur Werner Herzog (known for films like Aguirre: The Wrath of God, Fitzcarraldo and Encounters at the End of the World) and produced by the equally iconoclastic David Lynch (behind Eraserhead, Blue Velvet and the television show Twin Peaks), My Son, My Son, What Have Ye Done is a fascinating, often frustrating crime-drama and horror amalgam packed full of the quirks, oddball characters and creepiness that imbue each filmmaker’s respective works.

My Son is based on the true story of a San Diego college student who mentally unraveled while acting in a school production of a classic Greek play. The student transferred the tragedy’s matricide from stage-life to real-life when he impaled his mother with a prop sword. In the hands of the ultimate truth-bender Herzog, the story takes imaginative and often head-scratching turns.

Michael Shannon, nominated for a best supporting actor Oscar for his role in Revolutionary Road, is an uncorked bottle of rage and torment as Brad, an actor who barricades himself with hostages inside his flamingo-decorated San Diego home after becoming a suspect in his mother’s murder. A detective, played by Willem Dafoe, manages the crisis from the street, fielding bizarre requests from the unstable, armed man inside.

With help from Brad’s friends and family members, played by Udo Kier, Chloe Sevingy and others, the detective slowly learns of Brad’s collapsing mental state and erratic actions in the days leading to the murder.

Flashbacks replay these events, following Brad on a haunting, ill-fated river adventure in Peru; through tense play rehearsals; to visits with his racist, homophobic ostrich-raising uncle (Brad Dourif); and, most importantly, as he interacts with his overbearing, perpetually sunny mother, played to absolute perfection by Lynch regular Grace Zabriskie.

An atmosphere of foreboding and dread permeates this back-and-forth. Herzog’s trademark hand-held camerawork snakes with a sinister voyeurism, eyeing moments that feel privileged. Brazilian electronic musician Amon Tobin’s soundtrack amplifies the growing danger in a manner that recalls the sound usage in Lynch’s work.

A dark levity counteracts this downbeat, though. Herzog and Lynch’s stock straight-faced eccentricity is in full assault mode. When ostriches eat eyewear, coffee mugs plug “Razzle Dazzle,” and basketballs sit in trees, one feels as if the filmmakers revel in the escalating absurdities that their characters navigate.

Despite the narrative pleasures, My Son goes nowhere, unfortunately. Episodes jump backwards and forwards in time, but the story of a man driven to murder lies flat underneath. Perhaps this was intentional — the final scene is the ultimate nose-thumb to the audience — but had the plot been developed further, the film would have been an absolute powerhouse.