DUNE (1984) — if you wanna be my sand messiah, you gotta get with my Fremens.

Cinema of Cruelty (Movies for Masochists)

On this week’s annotated deep dive, The Cultists present David Lynch’s ‘Dune’ (1984). A byproduct of nearly two decades of active studio efforts to bring to the big screen, the 1984 highly anticipated “picture event” of Frank Herbert’s 1965 sci-fi classic was for some disappointing, for others baffling, and for a select special few the kind of sleeping celluloid wonder just on the precipice of awakening into something great. But whether you love it, hate it, or are just left simply overwhelmingly confused by its tormented world of Baroque excess, Dune (1984) remains a spectacularly cruel film on its viewers. One that despite being almost nothing but exposition, requires a knowledge of a galaxy of prerequisite reading materials to understand. So we read them.

Deep dives include: The production history of David Lynch’s Dune and the genealogy of the failed film attempts that came before; comparisons with Frank Herbert’s 1965 novel and the complexities created by opening the plot up to the rest of the often self-contradicting full book series; Frank Herbert’s extended world build (from the Holtzman Effect, to nerve induction machines, to the mutated spice-huffing, space-folding guild junkies); the cinematic dangers of working with ground glass; and why you shouldn’t ever trust a messiah, even if he can correctly put on a pair of pants.

Episode Safeword: “subdued”