If you’ve ever spoken with a self-proclaimed film enjoyer, you may have heard the name David Lynch eagerly brought up in conversation. He’s a filmmaker with a strong cult following, known mainly for his unsettling, avant-garde body of work and eccentric personality. 

I, rather unfortunately for others, am one of these self-proclaimed film enjoyers. Ever since diving into Lynch’s filmography, his name is one that I haven’t been able to keep out of my mouth. His films are a rite of passage for any (please excuse my pretense here) aspiring film connoisseur.

As we come up on the first anniversary of Lynch’s passing last January, I can’t help but reflect on what makes his works so tonally distinct—they aren’t horror, exactly, but they’re tinged with a certain terror that comes from their undeniable familiarity. 

Take Twin Peaks, for example. The 1990s cult-classic television series, co-run by Lynch and Mark Frost, takes place in the titular Twin Peaks, a fictional town in Washington State. After the mysterious murder of a teenage girl named Laura Palmer, an idiosyncratic FBI agent, Dale Cooper, uncovers unnerving secrets about the seemingly normal community. 

To a modern audience, the “normal town with a dark secret” plotline is well-known and quickly becoming trite. But any show you could think of that matches this format—Stranger Things, Riverdale, True Detective—draws influence from Twin Peaks. 

In fact, Lynch could be considered a pioneer of this oddly specific niche. He’s known for creating a caricature of these idyllic settings as a way of revealing their dark underbelly. He paints the corrupt side of Hollywood in his mystery-thriller, Mulholland Drive, and the bleakness of industrial society in his surrealist horror, Eraserhead. 

I would argue that Twin Peaks displays Lynch’s niche masterfully. Towering pine trees, quirky townsfolk, and 1950s-style diners all make for a homey image of the Pacific Northwest. It’s a show I couldn’t help but fall in love with: Lynch’s signature offbeat humor and memorable characters do an excellent job of bringing me into their odd little world. 

Of course, these charming elements don’t exactly make for a disturbing television show. Especially at the beginning of my first watch, I wondered why this series is classified as horror. It definitely had a disturbing subject matter, but the only thing that initially stood out as scary was the overwhelming amount of convoluted plotlines. 

But after pondering the Twin Peaks franchise, both as a standalone and in the context of Lynch’s oeuvre, I’ve come to realize its scare factor is much more subtle compared to your typical thriller. 

The terror of the show doesn’t come from jumpscares or gruesome body horror. Instead, Lynch scares you by skewing a familiar image: He takes that picture of pleasant American life that we hold so dear and warps it with these disturbing events. 

Twin Peaks is terrifying because it’s so recognizable. Instead of showing something completely foreign or supernatural, Lynch succeeds in highlighting the horror and absurdity of our own reality. 

When thinking about this idyllic facade of Twin Peaks, I kept seeing connections to Lynch’s 1986 film, Blue Velvet. It follows a young man who, upon discovering a human ear in a field in his hometown, becomes entangled in a criminal conspiracy revolving around a nightclub singer and her family.

The opening scene of Blue Velvet perfectly sets its tone. It starts with a shot of an impossibly blue sky, panning down to reveal a bed of brilliant red roses sitting in front of a white picket fence. It flashes a couple scenes of a picturesque suburban town, with children crossing the street and cheerful neighbors in front of their houses.

This ostensibly ideal world, however, is shattered when a man collapses on his front lawn. The tone shifts, and the camera zooms in deeply on the dirt to reveal thousands of cicadas writhing beneath this romanticized picture of American suburbia. 

Just like the town in Blue Velvet, there’s something sinister that hides just beneath the surface of Twin Peaks—something that can no longer be ignored after Palmer’s death. 

The character of Laura Palmer is, in herself, a representation of all Lynch strives to achieve. On the surface, she’s the quintessential “perfect girl,” right down to her iconic homecoming queen headshot: beautiful, charitable, good grades, attractive boyfriend. 

But Lynch explores the deeply troubled side of this figure both in the show and its much darker prequel film, Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me. The film focuses solely on Palmer in the week leading up to her murder. 

Palmer’s story gripped me, especially after viewing the absolutely sickening Fire Walk with Me. Her story is tragic: She is sexually abused by her father, struggling with a cocaine addiction, and prostituting herself to older men. As seen in the 1992 prequel film, she dies, alone and misunderstood, at the hands of her father. 

Many female fans, including myself, appreciate the care Lynch took to develop the character of Laura Palmer. In subverting this long-worn and one-dimensional trope of the homecoming queen, Lynch gives life to a complex and deeply tormented female character. Palmer’s story, like Twin Peaks, is disturbing, but viewers who have suffered through similar experiences can find catharsis in her story. 

What I always found most touching about Twin Peaks was the pervasive theme that love always triumphs over evil. The characters find solace in tight-knit relationships with others, romantic or otherwise. Even though Palmer dies tragically, she refuses to succumb to the same evil that manifested in her father. 

This is what makes Twin Peaks’ message so powerful: In the same way Lynch uses a sense of comfort to scare viewers, he also uses horror to provide a sense of comfort. Twin Peaks’ charm comes from the love and faith that persist in the community despite its tragic events.

When I reflect on Lynch’s works in a modern context, it shocks me how many of his abstract themes remain so prevalent. It’s as though, even in death, he urges us to see past the guise of an idyllic, inauthentic life. 

His legacy is dedicated to encouraging viewers to stop taking things for granted, to look beyond the surface and understand the deeper meaning of whatever they may take at face value—and turn their perspectives towards love.