Beneath the bland, white-picket-fence fantasy of suburban America lies an underworld of violence, terror, and incomprehensible wickedness in David Lynch’s nightmarish neo-noir. When All-American college kid Jeffrey (Kyle Maclachlan) discovers a severed human ear lying in a field, he becomes embroiled in a terrifying psychodrama in which ether-addicted psychopath Frank Booth (Dennis Hopper, in one of cinema’s most ferocious performances) has kidnapped the son of a sultry lounge singer (Isabella Rossellini) and used the child to force her into a bizarre form of sexual slavery. At once unsettlingly brutal and shockingly funny, Blue Velvet showcases Lynch’s uncanny ability to find the menace in mundanity and the absurd humor in the most terrifying evil. Part of our Lynch at 75 series.