आलोचक समीक्षाएं

As fascinating as it is freakish. It confirms Mr. Lynch's stature as an innovator, a superb technician, and someone best not encountered in a dark alley.

The most brilliantly disturbing film ever to have its roots in small-town American life. [19 September 1986, Calendar, p.6-1]

One powerful, mesmerizing thriller, a masterful exercise in controlling an audience's attention. [19 September 1986, Friday, p.A]

An exhilarating piece of popular entertainment.

Hopper creates a flabbergasting portrait of unrepentent, irredeemable evil.

You either think it's dementedly wild at heart or a lost highway to nowhere.

It's mostly fascinating, though the unconverted may be in for a rough two hours.

Dark, menacing and sexual, with satanic overtones, like a Black Sabbath song, with many moments of genuine fright and harsh eroticism. [19 September 1986, Daily Notebook, p.76]

Doesn't progress or deepen, it just gets weirder, and to no good end.

So strong, so shocking and yet so audacious that people walk out shaking their heads; they don't know quite what to make of it.