Customer Reviews

Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me (Widescreen)

5 star:		(77)
4 star:		(30)
3 star:		(15)
2 star:		(6)
1 star:		(14)

 

 

I love the Twin Peaks quirky characters with a hint of a "dark underbelly" - what you see ain't what you get! I bought Fire Walk With Me because I really like Sheryl Lee and thought it would be a great a addition to the dvd set as "Laura Palmer's last days" would be a complement to round it out. I am not surprised it didn't do well as the movie was very disjointed and the sequencing was poorly executed. The plot line was great, albeit disturbing, and would have been greatly enhanced if someone like Frank Durabont had done the directing or David E Kelly the writing. This movie was a real disappointment considering Twin Peaks was so enjoyable. Not sure what David Lynch was thinking with this one but he didn't do any of the actors any favors that's for sure.

I have a lot of friends who despise this movie. To them, it is not true to the spirit of the TV show. While I see where they're coming from, I disagree. While the TV show keeps the darkness under the surface, Fire Walk With Me is Lynch's view into the darkest aspects of human misery and evil. I see nothing wrong with a look at what's under the surface of the quirky Twin Peaks, unhampered by the restrictions of writing for network TV.

The scenes in the black lodge are unforgettably dark and disturbing. Sheryl Lee's acting is unbelievable. The symbolism is stark and memorable. As with most Lynch films, there is so much subtext that repeated viewings are just as revealing. Highly recommended for Lynch fans and anyone looking for a deeper understanding of evil.

The cult show "Twin Peaks" was reknowned for being weird and oddballish, but until fans have seen "Twin Peaks - Fire Walk With Me," they ain't seen weird yet. Without the restraints of weekly TV, David Lynch allows his unnerving imagination to run wild as it explores what happened before Laura died.

It begins with another FBI investigation -- waitress Teresa Banks has been murdered, but not much of the investigation is going forward. Then the investigation is dropped, and the movie skips ahead a year, showing us the last week of Laura Palmer's (Sheryll Lee) life.

In the course of those days, Laura is slowly slipping over to the Dark Side -- drugs, prostitutional sex, and nightmarish visions that are increasingly consuming her life. But as the drugs and sex take over Laura's life, she doesn't realize that a worse fate awaits her -- death, "wrapped in plastic."

David Lynch is known for making movies that are absolutely addling. They can make your brain hurt, and sometimes you never understand them at all. "Fire Walk With Me" goes under this heading. At the same time, it makes you think. And think. Like an Expressionist painting, it captivates as it bends your mind.

Lynch doesn't follow a real plot; instead, he lets the storyline slowly sink into Laura's downfall. Lynch paints the whole experience with nightmarish, surreal images and visions, and allows it to drip into your subconscious. And along the way, he fills it with slightly offbeat direction, heavy atmosphere, and the ability to make anything -- ANYTHING -- look menacing.

It's not exactly friendly to Lynch virgins -- if you don't know what to expect, this will simply tie your head in knots. And though this is a prequel, watch the TV show before venturing in here -- otherwise the appearances by Twin Peaks residents will simply go over your head. (Although it's fun to play "Spot David Bowie").

Lee does an excellent job as Laura, careening through the movie with a sense of doom. Laura's not likable here, but Lee keeps her from being a two-dimensional "fallen woman." And Moira Kelly is amazing as her good-girl pal Donna, while Kiefer Sutherland and Harry Dean Stanton have brief but solid roles as the FBI agents.

Though reviled when it was released, "Fire Walk With Me" This prequel was the last hurrah of the "Twin Peaks" series, but at least it was a worthwhile one.

The cult show "Twin Peaks" was reknowned for being weird and oddballish, but until fans have seen "Twin Peaks - Fire Walk With Me," they ain't seen weird yet. Without the restraints of weekly TV, David Lynch allows his unnerving imagination to run wild as it explores what happened before Laura died.

It begins with another FBI investigation -- waitress Teresa Banks has been murdered, but not much of the investigation is going forward. Then the investigation is dropped, and the movie skips ahead a year, showing us the last week of Laura Palmer's (Sheryll Lee) life.

In the course of those days, Laura is slowly slipping over to the Dark Side -- drugs, prostitutional sex, and nightmarish visions that are increasingly consuming her life. But as the drugs and sex take over Laura's life, she doesn't realize that a worse fate awaits her -- death, "wrapped in plastic."

David Lynch is known for making movies that are absolutely addling. They can make your brain hurt, and sometimes you never understand them at all. "Fire Walk With Me" goes under this heading. At the same time, it makes you think. And think. Like an Expressionist painting, it captivates as it bends your mind.

Lynch doesn't follow a real plot; instead, he lets the storyline slowly sink into Laura's downfall. Lynch paints the whole experience with nightmarish, surreal images and visions, and allows it to drip into your subconscious. And along the way, he fills it with slightly offbeat direction, heavy atmosphere, and the ability to make anything -- ANYTHING -- look menacing.

It's not exactly friendly to Lynch virgins -- if you don't know what to expect, this will simply tie your head in knots. And though this is a prequel, watch the TV show before venturing in here -- otherwise the appearances by Twin Peaks residents will simply go over your head. (Although it's fun to play "Spot David Bowie").

Lee does an excellent job as Laura, careening through the movie with a sense of doom. Laura's not likable here, but Lee keeps her from being a two-dimensional "fallen woman." And Moira Kelly is amazing as her good-girl pal Donna, while Kiefer Sutherland and Harry Dean Stanton have brief but solid roles as the FBI agents.

Though reviled when it was released, "Fire Walk With Me" This prequel was the last hurrah of the "Twin Peaks" series, but at least it was a worthwhile one.

I was a Twin Peaks fan, too, but this movie I love.

It may have been an accident: I sometimes wonder how attached to the thing Lynch was, the concept not being his alone but something he shared with Mark Frost. But forced to apply his specific way of seeing things to a pre-existing framework, he created a prequel to the series that was everything the series could not be, and in the process gave us some kind of masterpiece. Maybe it isn't as purely Lynch as Eraserhead or Blue Velvet, and perhaps it isn't as comfortable as Twin Peaks, but it is BETTER than any of them, perhaps because Lynch was forced to find an uneasy balance between that snakepit in his head and the demands of commercial cinema. Straining against the bonds of expectation (and breaking most of them) was good for him, and whether he felt any intimate attachment to the project or not, it seems to me to be the most successful presentation of his inner world.

Fire Walk With Me managed to chill me to the bone more than once in its running time, and I thought I was beyond being frightened by film forever. It also makes me cry every time I see it. The film is also literally thrilling, presenting a frightening and malign universe in which the damaged, angelic (and doomed) agents of a surreal FBI simply prove too delicate to survive with souls intact in the face of the kind of evil that would drive a father to rape his own daughter. You hear the word 'nightmarish' bandied about a lot in regard to horror films, and while I don't think I've ever heard this nightmarish thing referred to as a horror movie, that is just what it is: absolutely the finest horror film ever made. In the world of Fire Walk With Me it is the spiritual natures of the characters themselves that are in jeaopardy, and it is the stakes being so high that lends the story its depth and great power. This is going to sound like a ridiculous claim, but the closest approximation I know in literature is Dostoevsky. Remember the hair raising scene in Brother's Karamazov when the crippled girl who loves Alyosha purposely slams her finger in the door, and the look on her face? Or the scene in the Possessed in which the nihilist has agreed to commit suicide in order to prove that he is free, but is found in his pitch black room apparently trying to disappear into the wall? If those images stay with you, you're wired right to find a new favourite in Fire Walk With Me.

Twin Peaks was good in many ways, but it was also flabby -- most of the supporting characters could profitably have been dispensed with, particularly in the second season (and in Fire Walk With Me they are) -- and if we don't get as much of Dale Cooper as we might have liked in Fire, we should be glad that we at least get Lynch's final, purest meditation on what the series was all about. Strange as it may seem, this bizarre film about the darkest things is also one of the most paradoxically life affirming things I know of. Not only does it make me feel better about the movies and their potential, it makes me feel better about people.

"Fire Walk With Me" may not be David Lynch's best work but it rocks you
straight to hell! Never before have I seen Lynch being so angry and cruel! The opening sequence says it all! This is an art film, not a TV show. It does not exploit. Sheryl Lee gives the performance of her life playing Laura Palmer. She should have been at least nominated! Kyle MacLachlan, Chris Isaak, David Bowie, Harry Dean Stanton and Moira Kelly give memorable performances as well. "Fire Walk With Me" is hypnotic, it's like being inside a dream, just like one of the characters says: "We live inside a dream." It's scary as hell, Lynch's scariest film so far! It takes you places you don't really wanna go and shows you things you may not like. But it does this very well and it has no apologies to make to anyone.

Shot after the series was cancelled because there was a demand overseas for more "Twin Peaks" material, "Fire Walk with Me" gives us a glimpse of what occurred just prior to Laura Palmer's murder in the pilot. While it spells out some things only hinted at in the pilot and is a bit more literal than the series, "Fire Walk with Me" also has the benefit of being a theatrical film and, as such, we get to dig deeper into the underbelly of the town.

The first thirty minutes of the film are devoted to a murder similar to Palmer's that occurs in another town. A pair of FBI agents are sent in to investigate (Chris Issak and Keifer Sutherland). When they run into resistence from the local law enforcement, they're forced to flex their FBI muscles a bit. While investigating a clue in a trailer park, one of the agents vanishes. Agent Cooper (MacLachlan)is called in to find the missing agent.

Far more surreal than the series with a number of high profile cameos (David Bowie, Harry Dean Stanton), this is a bit more bizarre as well when compared to the series (and even the pilot). The DVD is chapter encoded (unlike the frustrating "Mulholland Drive"), has an original documentary that's shot in a style like Lynch might have used with the original cast (save Piper Laurie, Michael Ontkean, Jack Nance and a couple of other cast members)about the impact of the show.

It's an excellent companion piece of the pilot (available as of now only as a region 0 DVD from Taiwan)and the series (available as a boxed set for the first season only with, reportedly, the second season coming next year some time). Picture quality is exceptionally good with the sound particularly outstanding in its use of 5.1.

A solid cast with a good script that meanders a bit, "Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me" plays better than parts of the first season but isn't quite as strong as both the pilot and first 8 episodes of the series. It's still worthwhile for fans of the show.

I came into watching the series of Twin Peaks as a fan of Lynch's intuitively absurd filmmaking style. I found the series to be rock solid for the first 20 episodes (sorry, but most of the latter episodes (the finale excluded) were too drawn out and could have been easily compressed into two or three episodes). However, I found the merely occasional spattering of Lynch's trademarked imagery, cinemetography and irony too infrequent to satisfy what I had grown to love about his work.
Fire Walk With Me made up for all of this quite nicely.
Everything a hardcore Lynch fan waited several episodes at a time to see in the show is rampant throughout this movie. From the get-go, Lynch's frantic pace of contextualless imagery, oddly presented characters and dark humor blend together into a mix that satisfies both those interested in the Twin Peaks mythology and those who want to see an engaging film.
Personally, I found this film to be one of Lynch's finest, right alongside Eraserhead.

Don't sell this film short. There's much more too it than a mere prequel would suggest.

I really enjoyed this movie at the cinema back in the early 90s. It has left a lasting impression because it was eeery and well crafted. The famous Lynch style is there. The film focusses on the days leading up to Laura Palmer's murder.

When a film leaves a lasting impression, that says something about the film. I recommend fans of "twin peaks" definitely seeing this gem.

In my mind, this is one of the most under-rated films in the last 25 years. Lynch is a master of the subconscious and he leverages that to great effect in this film. Definitely not for everyone (and not for Children) but if you are a fan of Lynch this is a 'must see' even if you did not see Twin Peaks. This is on my top 10 list of films ever made. However, I have very specific tastes. As an example, when I saw this, I was up all night thinking, as this film affected me so deeply. It is disturbing, funny, and brilliant, occasionally overacted but overall a masterpiece. If you feel that just because you didn't like Twin Peaks, don't make the mistake that this is something you can skip if you are a Lynch fan (or want to be). Just be ready for a wild ride.