The Case for Twin Peaks
How was my experience watching Stranger Things? Good. The show overall was enjoyable, though I certainly don’t fall into the pool of audience members who are praising it. Throughout the eight episodes, the show slowly and surely began to remind me of how much I liked a different atmospheric mystery that appeared across thousands of televisions: Twin Peaks. When beginning Stranger Things, the first episode gave me familiar vibes that I could not entirely put my finger on. By the end of the third episode, it was obvious.
Both are atmospheric thrillers that drive off a mystery. In both first episodes, a boy or girl are appeared to have mysteriously wound up dead in situations that are bizarre and unexpected. The shows then slowly tell their stories, and unravel the tales of adolescents gone missing. Both include supernatural elements that defy all realms of possibility, and absorb whole towns into their madness.
While I do recommend Stranger Things, I would without a doubt hold Twin Peaks to a higher accord. When it comes down to it, Stranger Things doesn’t even compare. Twin Peaks was an innovative television series that premiered in 1990 by the hands of none other than David Lynch, in what could have been considered his prime. Laura Palmer was a homecoming queen who constantly received praise for her beauty and brains. One cold morning, her body was found dead in a plastic bag after having washed up on the shore in her small town of Twin Peaks, Washington. Over the span of two seasons, David Lynch and Mark Frost help tell the tale of how her mysterious murder would come to be solved. The supernatural atmosphere of the show can almost equate to the degree of early X-Files episodes, but without any of the kitschy elements. Although some of the most pivotal moments of discovering who in fact killed Laura Palmer are of another realm, they’re nothing to laugh at or remiss. During an era in which monster films such as The Things or The Fly were popular and indicative of great atmosphere, Twin Peaks took it to other levels. While otherworldly, the horror and supernatural elements or structures used during the series did not indicate textbook otherworldly entities, but rather examined how something recognizable or seemingly human can distort and manipulate reality. Its true horrors depicted how the eye can be deceived, and how no one is to be trusted. In a town as small as Twin Peaks, this revelation made a world of difference and caused a spree of discourse.
This is the element that needs to be replaced in horror, science fiction, and mystery. Elements that are present in the everyday world that can be distorted or mislead to appeal to a true horror that lurks within provides a much more lasting scare than a behemoth of demagorgan. While monster films, such as The Things (which is a masterpiece, check it out if you have yet to) deserve to belong in the world of television and cinema as much as realistic horror, it seems to be a trope used more often.
If I have yet to convince you to watch Twin Peaks, perhaps they will change your mind slightly.
