The failure of Dune knocked David Lynch down quite a few pegs, and the budget of his next film was a meager $6 million, a far cry from the $40 million he spent on the sci-fi bomb.

“I was down so far that anything was up,” he said about his time in the cinematic doghouse. “So it was just a euphoria. And when you work with that kind of feeling, you can take chances. You can experiment.”

That experiment took the form of a story that had been percolating in Lynch’s brain for more than a decade, a seedy tale of suburban America’s dark underbelly. And with 1986’s Blue Velvet, he delivered an unsettling triumph that embodied the term Lynchian.

Blue Velvet follows Jeffrey Beaumont (Kyle MacLachlan), a college student returning to his suburban hometown. When Jeffrey finds a severed human ear in a clearing near his house, he uncovers a mystery that drops him into the sadistic relationship between lounge singer Dorothy Vallens (Isabella Rossellini) and psychotic criminal Frank Booth (Dennis Hopper).

Assisting him in his amateur detective work is high school student Sandy (Laura Dern), a wide-eyed innocent who represents the lightness in the struggle between good and evil.

The film generated controversy for its depiction of disturbing violence and sexual assault, but those walking out and demanding refunds were more than matched by the film fans flocking to see it two and three times. Its earnings surpassed its modest budget, and it went on to become a home video cult classic.

Blue Velvet isn’t my favorite Lynch film but it’s close. And it might be the one that best encapsulates his particular vision and energy. Hopper and Rossellini perfectly capture the blend of edginess and vulnerability that makes Lynch’s films so memorable. Bravura set pieces (like one in which Dean Stockwell lip synchs today’s SOTD) live in the fuzzy space between reality and nightmare.

And the bookend scenes, capturing a suburban existence right out of a Norman Rockwell painting, feel like a broadcast from another plane — transmitted by a messenger who sees through the facade to the ugliness beneath.

“I’m seeing something that was always hidden,” Jeffrey says early in the film, and that’s exactly what it feels like watching Lynch’s first true masterpiece.