Dennis Hopper was most certainly not an unknown quantity when he appeared in Blue Velvet in 1986. However, his career had stagnated somewhat, and he'd taken to appearing in trashier films, quite often action and horror flicks, so it wasn't exactly unusual to see him play the creepier, manic role. But his appearance as Frank Booth in David Lynch's mystery masterpiece is easily one of the most disturbing you're likely to see in film. Frank is nothing short of psychotic. He has the temper of a mentally unsound invalid in the body of a fully grown maniac. He is a pervert of incalculable measures, and constantly takes hits from an unidentified gas which seems to only make him more erratic. But bizarrely, all of Frank's almost over-the-top characteristics are not the only thing which make him so disturbing, but Hopper himself aids that facet. Hopper's performance is so exaggerated in order to match the character, that you could be quite forgiven for believing that the director had simply raided a prison for the criminally insane and allowed the most unstable inmate to rant and rave with the rest of the cast in front of a camera. Hopper's trademarked manic style of acting is truly unnerving, and makes you shuffle uncomfortably in your seat as he dances through his acts of depravity.
