River's Edge

Director: Tim Hunter

1986 / 99min / 35mm

Before the murder of Laura Palmer rocked the city of Twin Peaks, another dead high school girl’s body unleashed a chaos of confusion in the Pacific northwest in Tim Hunter’s River’s Edge, a film imbued with sinister lushness by frequent David Lynch collaborator Elmes. Dead-eyed, flabby burnout Samson (Daniel Roebuck) casually dispatches with his girlfriend, drawing his circle of friends—including conscience-gnawed Keanu Reeves and majestically tweaked Crispin Glover—into complicity by putting her naked corpse on display. A murderously funny morality play, with the presence of Dennis Hopper linking Hunter’s film to obvious inspiration Rebel Without a Cause.

Print provided courtesy of the American Genre Film Archive

Introduction by cinematographer Frederick Elmes on Saturday, April 20th