Continuing my appreciation of filmmaker David Lynch’s career, the next film up is 1992’s Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me, a big-screen prequel to the hit TV show.

The movie was greenlit after Twin Peaks was cancelled, its second season having ended on a grisly cliffhanger. But rather than resolve that story, Fire Walk With Me is a prequel to the series that depicts the week before Laura Palmer was found dead.

The film was a commercial failure, not surprising given that it’s a spin-off of a TV show that was cancelled due to low viewership.

Critically, it didn’t fare much better, at least at the time. Once again, this is a Lynch film that has been reappraised over the years and is now considered one of his best.

It’s not surprising that Lynch’s films take time to be fully appreciated. He makes arthouse cinema, movies that are meant to be experienced, not necessarily understood. And that rubs up against the mainstream critics’ instinct to focus on plot and character first. Lynch’s very best films work on both levels at once, but his more opaque ones require a different sort of assessment.

I recall watching this film when it came out and being intrigued but a bit confused (even as somebody who watched Twin Peaks). Rewatching it this year, the connections to the TV show were fuzzy — it’s been more than 30 years since I saw the series — but I found the movie riveting.

I think that’s because I’ve become a much more open-minded cinephile over the years, able to appreciate many kinds of films I rejected in my youth. And it’s because watching Lynch’s movies in order primed me to respond to his rhythms, and the peculiar dream state he creates.

This is a sad and harrowing film about sexual assault, one that burrows deep into not just the underbelly of suburbia but the nature of good and evil. It’s uncomfortable, haunting, and ultimately quite beautiful.

A David Lynch film, in other words.