Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me

Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me is a 1992 psychological horror film directed by David Lynch and written by Lynch and Robert Engels. It serves as a prequel to the television series Twin Peaks (1990–1991), created by Mark Frost and Lynch, who were also executive producers. The film revolves around the investigation into the murder of Teresa Banks (Pamela Gidley) and the last seven days in the life of Laura Palmer (Sheryl Lee), a popular high school student in the fictional Washington town of Twin Peaks. It has a much darker and less humorous tone than the series.Most of the television cast reprised their roles for the film, though the majority of their scenes were cut and restored in Twin Peaks: The Missing Pieces. A few notable cast members including Lara Flynn Boyle, Sherilyn Fenn, and Richard Beymer did not reprise their roles for various reasons. Boyle’s character Donna Hayward was instead recast with Moira Kelly. Kyle MacLachlan, who starred as Special Agent Dale Cooper in the series, was reluctant to return out of fear of being typecast, which resulted in a smaller presence in the film than originally planned.
Fire Walk with Me polarized critics in the United States upon its release but has received more positive appreciation in subsequent years, with some critics viewing it as one of Lynch’s major works. Although it has long been reported that Fire Walk with Me was greeted with booing and jeers from the audience at the 1992 Cannes Film Festival, where it was nominated for the Palme d’Or, co-writer Robert Engels denies that this event ever happened. The film was a box office failure in the United States, although it fared much better in Japan. The film’s two planned sequels were cancelled, but several hours worth of deleted scenes were released in 2014 through the compilation Twin Peaks: The Missing Pieces and the story’s narrative continued through the 2017 miniseries Twin Peaks: The Return.