Anyone who has ever lived in a small community where normality is assumed probably also suspects that beneath the surface of everyday life lurk malevolent happenings. Blue Velvet is about the moral rot underlying the American Dream.

Coming of age is usually connected with an individual's sexual awakening. Blue Velvet explores the dark side of human relationships built upon power and perversion. This film, written and directed by David Lynch (Eraserhead, The Elephant Man, Dune), is one of the most hallucinatory movie ever released in America. It elicited a wildly divergent critical response ranging from laudatory praise to complete damnation. It is not a movie for everyone. Those who savor exotic experiences are sure to find it both frenzied and exhilarating.

When Jeffrey (Kyle MacLachlan), a college student, finds a severed human ear in a field, he reacts like a good citizen: he takes it to the town's detective. Then Sandy (Laura Dern), a high school senior who is the detective's daughter, tells him what she has heard about the ear. Jeffrey's curiosity gets the best of him, and he starts spying on Dorothy (Isabella Rossellini), a torch singer who is being watched by the police.

No longer a good citizen, Jeffrey becomes an excited voyeur who witnesses Dorothy being sexually brutalized by Frank (Dennis Hopper), a violent thug who has kidnapped her son and husband in order to have his way with her.

This carnal lady of the night seduces Jeffrey at knifepoint, and he soon finds himself psychologically torn between his amorous feelings for Sandy and his odd and dangerous sexual relationship with Dorothy.

Blue Velvet is laced with arresting cinematic images that are at once realistic and surreal. The rock music on the soundtrack demonstrates the eerie effects of pop songs, which can transport us into realms of nostalgia and fantasy.

"It's a strange world, isn't it?" Sandy comments to Jeffrey. Yes, it is a strange world, where criminal predators wait in the shadows, where users and abusers, victims and villains are as real as apple pie, pleasant suburban lawns, and nice friendly families. The fact that we must somehow find our way through this strange world is what makes Blue Velvet such an unsettling and unforgettable experience.