Unlike everyone says, "Wild at Heart" is far from being David Lynch's worst film. Actually, there is a part of me that even thinks it's a masterpiece. As a parody, it doesn't have the gloomy atmosphere of "Blue Velvet", but personally, I found it even more extreme and uncompromising. I understand that it could be a bit too much to handle though: the cartoonish characters and the cheap soap opera overacting that characterized Twin Peaks are not for everyone, and the pulpy sex and gore make everything feel even more grotesque. I mean, people's brains getting blown out, continuous Wizard of Oz references, and Nic Cage singing Elvis songs and dancing with karate chops at a power metal gig, all in the same movie! Retrospectively we can describe it as a Tarantino-style movie, but we should not forget that Tarantino was not even close to debuting at the time "Wild at Heart" was shot.

The plot is partly based on the pulp-noir novel of the same name, and is overall pretty straightforward: Lula and Sailor are two rebels in love who decide to hit the road so that no-one can drive them apart anymore. Lula's mother is an evil witch who sends a private eye and a hitman after them. Lynch decides to add all kinds of weird diversions along the way, with some of the craziest, creepiest characters he ever created. More than the original story itself, these diversions are the things that make the film truly memorable. Unlike "Twin Peaks" and "Blue Velvet", there is no light to balance the sleaze and darkness, no coffee and cherry pie after the nightmare. Lula and Sailor are naive and madly in love, but they just feel like cheap and shallow caricatures, you couldn't care less about them.

I understand that the movie aims at creating a world and characters rather than just telling a coherent story, but some focus on the plot wouldn't have hurt. Mr. Reindeer, the Durango gang and Marcellus Santos are iconic characters with their own story arcs, but the film forgets about them halfway through. Marietta even gets "erased" for convenience. Willem Dafoe as Bobby Peru is one of the creepiest Lynchian villains ever, but gets disposed of a bit too easily. It's like they shot what they could and then abruptly closed the film with a pre-made happy ending.

Regardless, the countless iconic scenes and over the top pulp still make "Wild at Heart" one of my personal David Lynch favorites.