Review: Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me

★ ★ ★ ★ ★

Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me is a prime example of Lynch firing on all cylinders: Horrifying, off-kilter, deranged, unbalanced, inexplicable, devastating and hilarious at times. If it’s a horror film, then the monster is depression, stemming from fractured relationships, impossibly high expectations, and the banality of American life that Twin Peaks so relentlessly satires throughout the show’s runtime. It's also a tragic character study that shatters our assumptions– as well as the town’s rosy memories– of Twin Peaks’ golden girl, a proverbial lightning rod for the unspeakable evil lurking beneath the surface.

I always wondered why this film was so poorly received. The reasons are clear to me now: To even remotely understand what’s happening in this film its contingent that one watches the original series. Moreover, the campy, autumnal, small town aura of the original series is what initially attracted the mainstream following, not its bizarre, twisted underbelly. Chaste American audiences love to hate when a filmmaker pummels them with depravity, but have no qualms when it's merely suggested. They’re fine with Laura’s burden, as long as they don’t need to carry part of the weight. This film is Lynch’s way of exposing that hypocrisy, and in doing so, he has crafted a masterpiece of modern horror.