
In 1968, David Lynch was just getting his hands dirty with experimental film and art, but was getting reluctant to continue working with film due to the high cost. His mind was changed when a fellow student saw Lynch’s paintings and offered the soon-to-be cult director, $1000 to create a similar film to Lynch’s “After Six Figures Getting Sick”. Lynch purchased a used Bolex camera and began filming, only to discover a few months later that the camera was defective, rendering his film useless. The film student told Lynch to keep the rest of the money and do whatever he’d like with it.
Around this time, Lynch’s wife, Peggy, told him of a dream she had, where her niece was reciting the alphabet in her sleep, woke up, then started bouncing around the room repeating the recital. Lynch ran with it, creating the haunting short, “The Alphabet”. When I say haunted, I mean it, I’ve seen it many times and I always get an icky feeling, maybe it’s just something about scary chanting children or the chilling soundtrack, featuring a newborn Jennifer Lynch crying, I can’t quite place it.
Turn off your lights and watch the video after the jump…
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