Let me not be vague – for the first hour of Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me, I absolutely despised it. Consider that I have yet to even marginally dislike anything David Lynch has done, nevermind outright resent something he has made, this was quite an uncharacteristic experience. For reasons that will be explained in due course, Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me was a cinematic rendering of everything that Twin Peaks, a show that I consider almost entirely perfect (with the exception of a few forays into questionable quality), was not. Every reason I had for adoring Twin Peaks as a show was entirely disposed of here, with Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me being a film so polarizing in its execution, to this very moment I am not entirely sure how I feel about it. However, putting all the issues with this film aside (and believe me, there are problems abound throughout this film), there was something that I did come to realize – Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me may just be David Lynch’s most misunderstood film, a subversive masterpiece that succeeds in doing exactly what the visionary filmmaker set out to do. For better or for worse, Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me is a mesmerizing odyssey into the demonic underbelly so frequently alluded to in Twin Peaks, without many meaningful ventures within. Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me is everything that Twin Peaks was not, and while that is jarring, it is also admirable and has its towering merits that often threaten to outweigh the bewildering faults present throughout.

Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me takes place in the seven days before the murder of Laura Palmer, which was the central storyline in Twin Peaks. The outset of the film is a confounding investigation of the murder of another young woman, which draws parallels between this case and the Laura Palmer case that is to come, as well as providing some slight contextualization. Various characters are introduced merely for the sake of being introduced (such as Harry Dean Stanton’s terrific Carl Rodd, who was done a great injustice by his limited screentime) as well as allowing us glimpses into the prior lives of a variety of the characters we love. The film, unlike the series, is focused almost solely on two characters, Laura Palmer (played by Sheryl Lee) and her father, Leland (the always-reliable Ray Wise), and their sinister relationship, whereby Leland is the beloved and trustworthy town attorney in public, but a terrifying, demonic abuser and rapist to his daughter behind closed doors. Laura herself grows dependent on drugs and violent sexual encounters to distract from her corrupted domestic life. Over the course of a few days, we follow Laura through her various trials and tribulations as a young woman leading a double life, as well as her bilateral father, who only grows in stature of terror as the film progresses.

Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me was truly a bewildering film, and to this very moment I am not sure how I feel about it, as I’ve mentioned previously. There was a fair amount of this film I outright despised, mainly because everything that I admired about Twin Peaks was viciously elided from this film, and replaced with sheer, unadulterated terror. This film lacked the rugged charms of the series, as well as the irreverent humor that made it such an entertaining experience. The eccentric and idiosyncratic vision of small-town American suburbia was considerable missing from Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me, with bleak and horrifying visions of social decay, lacking anything remotely as warm and endearing as the original show. I can credit this to be entirely unprepared for this film, but even some of Lynch’s most bleak and hopelessly terrifying films, such as Blue Velvet and Mulholland Drive, had touches of humor peppered throughout and were able to effectively blend social satire with fear and anguish. There is a reason why Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me is Lynch’s most polarizing film, because it stands out as an outlier in his exceptional filmography, and while my initial reaction, as I’ve said before, was sheer repulsion, thought and meditation on the film have confirmed that for all of its faults, Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me is undeniably effective and strangely resonant in terms of emotional gravitas.

There is an element of Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me that struck me as truly audacious and unlike anything I’ve seen from the filmmaker before, or since – it is David Lynch at his most radical and unhinged. He abandons all restraint and conventional decency to deliver a truly mind-shattering, heart-stopping horror that subverts expectations and will give the viewer the most vivid nightmares and delusions. It is a film that approaches a familiar horror trope – possession of a normal individual with a truly malevolent demonic force – in a way that is subversive and oppositional to the tried-and-tested cliches of the genre. I am hesitant to state that I liked this film, but I certainly have grown to admire it. It was a film that allowed Lynch to present a particularly nightmarish vision of the world, in a way that was relentlessly shocking and extraordinarily terrifying. It is a film that does not attempt to be accessible in the same way that many modern horror films are, pulsating with energetic shock through conventional scare tactics. Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me is entirely contrary to this idea, attempting to instill fear and anxiety into the audience, and relying on suspense and sheer terror to convey this brutal story. It may be different from Twin Peaks in its dark and hopeless nature, but it was the necessary story that needed to be told, and Lynch did something truly admirable with this film. It may not be his greatest film, and I may have a large number of problems with it, but for the most part, it is an effective possession horror and a truly original and audacious one at that.

Sheryl Lee was done a great disservice during the original run of Twin Peaks – other than being the literal face of the show, with her effigy being present in every episode, she also played Maddy, one of the most disposable characters the show has ever seen, regardless of the tremendous effort put into making her appear important and meaningful. The few brief moments the audience saw of Lee as Laura in the series were unremarkable, and she was far more of a plot device. Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me has Lee at the forefront, playing Laura in a way that is both similar to the reputation she gains post-mortem throughout the show while showing unexpected complexity as well. Her effortless ability to oscillate between the two sides of Laura – insecure and frightened on one side, and reckless and carefree on the other – was truly extraordinary, and Lee gives an incredible performance, finding the gravitas in a character without many redeeming qualities, who is not intended to be a sympathetic heroine, but through the meaningful performance given by Lee, and the nuances that she adds to the character, her portrayal of Laura Palmer is heartbreaking and painfully realistic.

However, as much as Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me is centered around Lee’s wonderful portrayal of Laura Palmer, there is someone else that gives a performance that is amongst the greatest ever committed to a horror film, Ray Wise. Playing Leland Palmer, the grieving father and beloved town lawyer, who is revealed to be possessed by a malevolent spirit and forced into a hidden life of rape and murder, Wise is almost unspeakably great in Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me. Very rarely has a performance managed to instill such utter, brutal dread in me to the point whereby it haunts me for days afterward. Whether it be the terrifying smirk of pure evil, or the moments of brief innocence reflecting through the brutality of his character, Wise’s performance is imprinted deeply into my mind, and has left an indelible mark. It is a performance that is not seen very often, and while Wise was terrific in the original series, his performance in Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me is in a completely different stratosphere of pure brilliance, and something almost otherworldly. This is not mere hyperbolic ramblings, but rather a truthful expression of the deep brilliance Wise conveyed with this performance.

Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me may not have the extensive ensemble of colorful characters that the original show had, and whether one considers this a flaw or a merit of the film is a contentious issue. However, it may have been effective to focus on only two central characters, but there was a panoply of other performances, both of returning Twin Peaks veterans or new talents. Kyle Maclachlan returns as Special Agent Dale Cooper, but only for a very brief set of scenes, and he seems extremely out of character, and clearly did not particularly want to be in this film. David Lynch is as wonderful and moving as Gordon Cole, but his role is also very diminished. David Bowie has an odd but fascinating appearance as Agent Phillip Jeffries, who may hold some unspoken significance that I am raring to discover as I explore the Twin Peaks folklore more. Harry Dean Stanton is as splendid as always, and I simply cannot praise him or his performance in here (or anything) enough, and even if his role as Carl Rodd in Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me left too much unsaid, but his mysterious past is only more tantalizing. More than anything else, while Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me has some interesting performances scattered throughout, this film is primarily about the central dynamic between Laura and Leland Palmer, and in the instance of both performers, they rose above the flaws of the film to deliver absolutely incredible portrayals of two broken, tragic individuals who fell victim to the malevolence of the otherworldy.

For better or worse, Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me is an unforgettable film. Once again, I cannot say that I particularly liked it, but I admired the audacity, and the relentless passion Lynch imbued in this film, returning to the central mystery that drove the iconic television series and focusing almost solely on the terrifying otherworldly phenomena that was the core of Twin Peaks. Sheryl Lee and Ray Wise are absolutely astonishing, and they convey the intricate complexities that sometimes went ignored in the original series. Lynch is probably the greatest cinematic iconoclast to ever live, and his dismissal of convention, both in this film and his career as a whole, is inspiring, and while it may lead to a bewildering and polarizing film such as Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me, his sheer originality in constructing a detailed world, as well as his remarkable control of terror and anxiety, is outstanding, and he proves himself to be arguably the most important filmmaker of his generation. Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me was unlike anything I have ever seen before, bleak and hopeless and just undeniably…strange, which I suspect was what Lynch intended to convey when he returned to tell the tragic tale of the death of Laura Palmer. Love it, or hate it, but one simply cannot deny that Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me is mesmerizing and truly unforgettable.