Review of Blue Velvet (1986) by Mitchell S — 12 Jul 2017

David Lynch had the unsurpassed joy of flatulating in a room full of self-congratulatory minded, rich, Jewish and Christian studio heads who ghettoized everything profane and godless from mingling with the crowd pleasing 1980s fluff. Blue Velvet, with its audacious Frank Booth character, as well as Kyle MacLachlan's own trippy and self-conscious prelude to Twin Peaks performance, seemed to be the 1970s clawing back at the pretentious Reagenesque culture - as if to remind us that Evil never dies, Pain is constant, and Perversity is freeing. Lynch's most linear film is still his most brilliant.

You have to internally fear any cinema villain who loudly proclaims his will to rape any living thing in existence. Frank Booth was the human equivalent of a rabid pit bull, spewing nonsense and obscenities while glaring at protagonist Jeffrey Beaumont with arguably the most insane expression in movie history. While I love Jack Nicholson's theatrics as The Joker, and Heath Ledger's grunge doomsday interpretation of the madman, those clowns couldn't hold a twisted grin to this demon. Frank Booth insisted on leaving his victims with dread and confusion, a far crueler fate. This is David Lynch's true contribution to cinema, discounting his pot party shenanigans of Eraser Head and Mulholland Drive; a devious, mentally-disturbed man who hates you for no apparent reason.