Blue Velvet
1986 · Directed by David Lynch
A college kid finds a severed ear in a field. The investigation drags him into a Lynchian basement of velvet, nitrous, and Dennis Hopper screaming into a microphone. Suburbia has never been this haunted.
Why It's Cult
Blue Velvet is the film that made David Lynch David Lynch — Twin Peaks would have been impossible without it. Kyle MacLachlan's wide-eyed Jeffrey, Isabella Rossellini's shattered Dorothy, Dennis Hopper's Frank Booth — one of the most unhinged performances ever filmed. Roy Orbison's 'In Dreams' will never sound the same. It's not a movie you recommend casually; it's a movie you make somebody sit down for. Then you watch their face.
The Plot, Officially
College student Jeffrey Beaumont returns to his idyllic hometown of Lumberton to manage his father's hardware store while his father is hospitalized. Walking though a grassy meadow near the family home, Jeffrey finds a severed human ear. After an initial investigation, lead police Detective John Williams advises Jeffrey not to speak to anyone about the case as they investigate further. Detective Williams also tells Jeffrey that he cannot divulge any information about what the police know. Detective Williams' high school aged daughter, Sandy Williams, tells Jeffrey what she knows about the case from overhearing her father's private conversations on the matter: that it has to do with a nightclub singer named Dorothy Vallens, who lives in an older apartment building near the Beaumont home. His curiosity getting the better of him, Jeffrey, with Sandy's help, decides to find out more about the woman at the center of the case by breaking into Dorothy's apartment while he knows she's at work. What Jeffrey finds is a world unfamiliar to him, one that he doesn't truly understand but one that he is unable to deny the lure of despite the inherent dangers of being associated with a possible murder. Still, he is torn between this world and the prospect of a relationship with Sandy, the two who are falling for each other, despite Sandy already being in a relationship with Mike, the school's star football player.
Starring
Isabella Rossellini, Kyle MacLachlan, Dennis Hopper
Where to Watch
via JustWatch →
