Critic Reviews

• Ted Fry, Seattle Times

  Like any good documentary, this one releases information slowly and sometimes with startling abruptness.

• Frank Scheck, Hollywood Reporter

  There's an undeniable fascination to watching the extensive footage of Erickson, whose yowling, manic vocals on display in the extensive archival performance footage contrasts dramatically with scenes of him in more recent times.

• Joshua Rothkopf, Time Out New York

  One senses that this profile has been made by a fan who assumes we'll supply the pathos ourselves. And drug casualties are surely upsetting. But how can we miss someone we never really get to know?

• Matt Zoller Seitz, New York Times

  You're Gonna Miss Me follows Roky Erickson, the lead singer of the 13th Floor Elevators and maybe the most influential 1960s pop star that most folks haven't heard of.

• Peter Rainer, Christian Science Monitor

  Complexly intriguing.

• Rafer Guzman, Newsday

  A sensitive case-study of a promising artist who fell afoul of the system but still managed, with the help of family, to reassemble his shattered life.

• Annlee Ellingson, Boxoffice Magazine

  Today Roky is actually on tour again, with a number of 2007 musical festival appearances including Coachella -- a development at least worthy of an afterword.

• Shawn Levy, Oregonian

  Like Crumb or The Devil and Daniel Johnston, it's remarkably close-up moviemaking, with family secrets laid bare for all the world to see.

• Kurt Loder, MTV

  The film chronicles [Roky's brother] Sumner's quest - and [Roky's mother] Evelyn's resistance, and Roky's oblivious disconnection - in scenes of remarkable and distressing intimacy. There are also several clips of rare footage from the Elevators days that

• Louis Proyect, rec.arts.movies.reviews

  Powerful drama about a legendary rock musician's battle with schizophrenia and a chance at a new life.

• Gary Goldstein, Reel.com

  Another dysfunctional American family gets its documentary close-up in the sad but involving You're Gonna Miss Me, the story of legendary music pioneer Roger "Roky" Erickson.

• Ken Fox, TV Guide's Movie Guide

  Keven McAlester's superb documentary about Texas singer-songwriter Roky Erickson scratches the surface of an artist's life only to find a welter of insanity, secrets and family dysfunction.

• Prairie Miller, Long Island Press

  A potentially meaningful endeavor, but one that just seems to get led astray, and bogged down in the sordid details of Rory's ensuing lifelong mental illness and dysfunctional family history.

• Don R. Lewis, Film Threat

  You're Gonna Miss Me is still a great meld of rock history, the sociological and familial impacts of mental disability and some courtroom intrigue.

• , Austin Chronicle

  McAlester documents Erickson's musical rise and unfortunate decline into a mental illness he still struggles with, unleashing archival performances and home videos in this documentary film.

• Joe Williams, St. Louis Post-Dispatch

  The movie does an exceptional job of placing Erickson in the context of the many forces that molded his peculiar genius.

• Oz, eFilmCritic.com

  It's gripping stuff to watch and, quite frankly, the stuff that great documentaries are made of.

Read all 17 critic reviews