Twin Peaks: Warner: 113 minutes: Starring: Kyle MacLachlan, Joan Chen, Piper Laurie, Jim Marshall, Michael Ontkean: Director - David Lynch: (tba)

December 8, [pounds]35, TV/Cable/Satellite holdback - tba. Promo - tba

One of the most absorbing, and certainly strangest, films to have come through this office in some little time. When you learn that it was directed by David Lynch, the man who brought you the disturbing Blue Velvet last year, the strangeness can be explained, but the atmosphere and curious ending that Lynch delivers to what appears to be for some time a standard serial killer plot still come as a bit of a jolt. The Twin Peaks of the title is a sleepy loggin town on the Pacific West Coast of the USA.

The movie opens with the discovery of the local High School beauty wrapped in plastic and very dead on a beach. The next 30 minutes consist of brooding music and the heart-rending grief of everybody who knew the girl. Enter FBI agent Cooper (MacLachlan), obsessively reporting everything that happens into a dictaphone. He and the local sheriff gradually uncover the double life of the murder victim and indeed the entire town and its intertwined activities involving drugs and sexual blackmail. Another girl is discovered gang-raped and close to death. a tiny single letter `R` is found under the fingernail of another corpse. a couple of local boys suspect a biker gang and unexpectedly lead the cops a wild goose chase.

Things appear to crystalise when the girl´s mother produces a sketch of the murderer and an anonymous phone call to Cooper results in an rendezvous at the hospital and a denouement that defies description. The movie is chiefly enjoyable for its determination to give every character a fully-rounded oddball personality and an equal enthusiasm for getting away from stock plotlines. It won´t be huge, but it will be a keeper.

Quality: Eight stars
Rentability: Six [pounds]