Blue Velvet (1986)

Hyde Park Picture House is screening David Lynch's Blue Velvet on Saturday 24 October, a 40th anniversary edition of the 1986 film. It's part of their Creatures of the Night strand, so it's a late one: the film starts at 22:30 and runs for 2 hours and 1 minute.

If you haven't seen it, Blue Velvet is a dark murder mystery that starts with a severed human ear found in a field. Young Jeffrey Beaumont, played by Kyle MacLachlan, returns home to visit his father in intensive care and stumbles upon it, then teams up with Sandy, a police officer's daughter, to investigate. That trail leads them both into a hidden world of crime, strangeness and obsession. It's one of the early masterpieces of Lynch's career, and it's built around his trademark obsession: the idea that a dark underworld exists just beneath the surface of the American Dream.

Along with MacLachlan, the cast includes Isabella Rossellini, Laura Dern and Dennis Hopper. It's a disturbing film, and the 40th anniversary screening comes with strobe lighting, so keep that in mind if you're sensitive to it. The whole thing runs just over two hours, and since it kicks off at half-ten, you'll be out well after midnight.

It's a late-night slot at the Picture House, and it's part of the Creatures of the Night strand, which usually leans into the weirder, darker side of cinema. Blue Velvet fits that perfectly. The screening is on Saturday 24 October at 22:30, with a runtime of 2 hours and 1 minute.