1990 was a perfectly fine year for horror: “Jacob’s Ladder” twisted our minds, “Childs Play 2” proved Chucky was more than a trend, and “Tremors” and “Arachnophobia” brought horror-comedy back on the scene in a big way. But for my money, nothing on screen in 1990 was scarier than meeting BOB.
The dream-like devil at the center of David Lynch and Mark Frost’s “Twin Peaks,” BOB (Frank Silva) slunk his way on screen and into our nightmares in the show’s pilot episode. Imagery is powerful, and the images Lynch captures of the long-haired man with the rictus grin are seared into viewers’ collective imaginations thanks to Lynch’s dread-inducing vision of the mysterious villain. The image of BOB climbing over a couch as if lunging towards unassuming viewers is truly terrifying, and it’s built from the same type of unnervingly participatory shot that would make “Ringu” a hit years later. Yet before BOB became a fixture in our intrusive thoughts, he was an unassuming set decorator.
Frank Silva was working as a set dresser on the production of what would become the pilot episode of “Twin Peaks” when, through either a fluke or a stroke of genius, Lynch changed his life. The filmmaker has told the story a few times over the years, including in the featurette “A Slice of Lynch,” released with the 2007 “Twin Peaks”: Definitive Gold Box Edition. In it, Lynch, producer John Wentworth, and actors Mädchen Amick and Kyle MacLachlan shared stories about their time on the show over cups of coffee.
Here, Lynch frames the BOB epiphany almost like a ghost story, saying he heard a disembodied woman’s voice from behind him as he was working on the floor in the Laura Palmer house. Silva, who was getting the room ready for the shoot, had apparently just moved a dresser near the door. The woman — actually an unnamed crew member — joked that Silva shouldn’t lock himself in the room, and Lynch was struck with inspiration. “I suddenly pictured Frank in that room,” Lynch told the group, noting that the word “locked” piqued his imagination. Here’s the rest of the story about BOB’s first scene… read more >
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