Under The Lawn

The film opens on white picket fences, red roses and a fire engine going past in slow motion, then drops the camera into the grass to find beetles fighting in the dirt. That is the whole thesis, stated in ninety seconds. A student home from college finds a severed ear in a field, takes it to the police, and cannot stop pulling at the thread, which leads to a nightclub singer being blackmailed and a man who breathes gas through a mask and treats violence as choreography. Dennis Hopper reportedly told Lynch he had to have the part because he was Frank Booth. What makes the film hold is the tone: Lynch plays the small town material with complete sincerity rather than irony, so the horror reads as something that lives in the same house.