Blue Velvet

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David Lynch is a very love-him-hate-him director, with people fascinated by his style and imagery and others who find his films not easy to follow and too weird for their tastes. As somebody who loves Lynch and a lot of his films(the only one I've disliked is Dune), Blue Velvet is up there at the top. The Elephant Man(never has there been a film that moved me more) may be my personal favourite but Blue Velvet is quite possibly Lynch's masterpiece. Loved Mulholland Drive as well, but it is not as accessible as Elephant Man or Blue Velvet- films that even those who aren't fans of Lynch are likely to love- and is his most polarising most likely. Blue Velvet is an incredible-looking film. All of Lynch's films are beautifully shot and that is true of Blue Velvet as well, and the imagery is both hauntingly surreal and beautiful, all the different colours really popping out at you. The music is hypnotic with a very haunting undercurrent and really adds to the story's strangeness and mystery elements. The script is thoughtful and cohesive with a dose of weird but subtle humour as well as some deliberately not so subtle parts(especially with villain Frank Booth). The atmosphere created is the very meaning of scintillating and suspense levels are to the maximum. The story- one of the most coherent and accessible of any Lynch film- is always interesting and entertaining, the detective story elements are genuinely suspenseful and at times scary, Lynch has never directed a tenser scene than the climax here. Lynch's direction is superb; along with Mulholland Drive it contains some of his best. The characters all serve a point to the story and they are very interestingly written, in the case of Frank Booth, one of the most evil and fascinating villains on films, iconic. The acting is superb as well, especially with Dennis Hopper who's terrifyingly sadistic and sometimes hilarious, he is very over the top but in a gleefully enjoyable way. Kyle MacLachlan has never been in a better film or given a better performance than here, he's certainly not had a character as interesting either, Laura Dern is great and sensual Isabella Rossellini has a challenging role that she plays to truly devastating effect. Look out for an oddball but memorable appearance from Dean Stockwell as well. Overall, a strange but utterly mesmerising masterpiece. 10/10 Bethany Cox

How could a film this awful receive such high praise from the critics? The answer lies in the degeneration of our culture by 1986. This is essentially a teen slasher flick, with more gruesomes added on to bring the 15-year-old males into the theaters. It's simply disgusting. And stupid. In one scene, our teen hero is slashed by a knife in the face. The next day, there is isn't a hint of a scar. He's beaten savagely in one scene, and within days shows no marks of the event. If you like to see a naked girl screaming and running about and a villain hurling four letter words while he threatens mayhem, this is just your flick. Shame on the critics.

One has to watch a David Lynch movie just to say you have seen one. This was actually nominated for an Academy Award and won many others, so it is probably as good as any to see. I tried Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me, but couldn't get more than a couple of scenes before I gave up. I was able to hang in there for this. There has to be something there, but I just don't get it. The man has four Academy Award nominations for his films. He must be doing something that I just don't see. Closeups of bugs in the grass or the inside of an ear is not stirring cinematography to me. An example of the dialog you have to endure in this film: Jeffrey Beaumont (Kyle MacLachlan): You're a neat girl. Sandy Williams (Laura Dern): So are you... I mean, you're a neat guy. This wasn't random, but typical. And, what's with the "chicken walk"? Maybe some think it is worth enduring to see Isabella Rossellini * walking like a zombie. I was worth enduring just to know what a David Lynch film is like, and to avoid them in the future.

It got of to a good start with the great opening "Blue Velvet" song, shame after about half an hour you didnt really care about were the film was heading, I wanted it to be more but it didnt deliver at all ... completly boring, silly and rubbish, and as with most Lynch films its definatly a select taste which thankfully I dont have! :)

With Blue Velvet, David Lynch made a film that was so pure to his original vision that it would become the archetype of his work for the next fifteen years. Here, Lynch cast his ever probing, surrealist gaze upon small town middle America, and for the first time in a US film, showed the audience the darker side to what was often depicted as nothing more than the birth place of apple pie. We are drawn into the story almost immediately, with what would seem like a simple depiction of small town life, but the use of slow-motion hints that there is something not quite right with what we are looking at. So by the time Lynch has pushed his camera through the soft green grass of a regular front lawn, only to show us the slithering insects that hide in the darkness, we know that we are about to enter a very dark world. Blue Velvet is a world filled with not only darkness, but also ambiguity. The characters of this world are constantly hiding behind some kind of façade, be it the wardrobe doors that practicing teenage voyeur Jeffrey peers from behind as he watches Dorothy and Frank interact, or something as simple as the make-up worn by Ben. Everything suggests to us that these characters inhabit a world at night, a world away from the life they live in the day. As the film moves closer and closer to the climax Jeffrey begins to feel more of a connection with Frank, having to go to some very dark places within his psyche. However Lynch's message, that underneath the normal persona of a regular human being is a repressed pervert laying in wait, or whatever point he is making doesn't really translate well. Not least to today's audience. Blue Velvet is very much a film of its time, that time being the mid-eighties, with aids paranoia everywhere, it's easy to see this metaphor for the dangers of sex and love within the films turgid dreamscapes. But beneath this message hides a strong detective story, a modern day neo-noir that delivers interesting twists and a controversial pay-off with it's almost fairytale climax. This is the film David Lynch got right, proceeding to make great films that where all personal, but completely different in terms of style and substance from one another. Blue Velvet is a great film, with some fine (albeit bizarre) performances, still challenging to this day, If only Lynch hadn't gone on to spend the rest of his career re-making it.

To watch Blue Velvet for the first time 31 years after its original release is a treat of unexpected proportions. I'm not going to tell about the story because, I'm sure, each one of us could tell it in very different ways. The blandness of Kyle MacLachland here is a major plus. It's not him that rivet us but his circumstances. And the circumstances are truly riveting, terrifying, unpredictable and gloriously cinematic. Dennis Hopper is superb, disgustingly so and Isabella Rossellini creates a character that was totally new to me. Related to many others but new, disturbingly so. Dean Stockwell has a moment that I know already will stay in my mind for ever. I'm so glad I finally saw it.