Synopsis
In the small logging town of Lumberton, Jeffrey Beaumont (Kyle MacLachlan) returns home from college after his father (Jack Harvey) suffers a near fatal stroke. He stays with his mother (Priscilla Pointer) and Aunt Barbara (Frances Bay) while he takes over working at the local hardware store that his father owns. While walking home from the hospital one day after visiting his father, he cuts through a vacant lot where he discovers a severed ear buried under overgrown grass and puts it in a paper bag. Jeffrey takes the ear to the police station and speaks to Detective John Williams (George Dickerson) whom he knows as a neighbor.
Later that evening, Jeffrey goes to Williams' house to glean further details. He finds the detective evasive about the case and receives a stern warning from Williams not to talk about what he found to anyone because it might jeopardize an ongoing police investigation. Outside the house, Jeffrey meets the detective's daughter, Sandy Williams (Laura Dern). She tells him a name she overheard from her father of a woman being investigated, Dorothy Vallens (Isabella Rossellini), a singer who also lives in the neighborhood. Increasingly curious, Jeffrey devises a plan to sneak into Dorothy's apartment that involves posing as an exterminator.
The next day, Jeffrey picks up Sandy from her high school and they drive over to the apartment building where Dorothy lives. Dorothy believes Jeffrey's ruse and lets him into her apartment to spray for bugs. Unexpectedly, a man dressed in a yellow jacket (Fred Pickler) knocks on Dorothy's door while Jeffrey's in the kitchen, and Jeffrey takes advantage of the distraction to steal Dorothy's spare keys.
That evening, Jeffrey and Sandy attend Dorothy's performance at the Slow Club. While Dorothy sings onstage, Jeffrey sneaks into her apartment to snoop. Sandy's parked outside of the building as a look-out in case Dorothy returns, but when she honks the car horn to warn Jeffrey, he doesn't hear it. He only has a few seconds to hide in a closet off the living room when he hears Dorothy approaching and unlocking the door. However, Dorothy, wielding a knife, finds him hiding and threatens to hurt him. When she realizes he is merely a curious boy, she assumes his intentions are sexual in nature, and is excited by his voyeurism. She makes him undress at knife point, then performs an act of fellatio on him.
Frank Booth (Dennis Hopper) interrupts their encounter with a knock on the door. Dorothy urges Jeffrey to return to the closet and he witnesses Frank's bizarre sexual engagement with Dorothy in her living room, which includes gas inhalation/asphyxia with a mask, dry humping, and sado-masochistic acts. One of Frank's fetish objects is a blue velvet robe that he makes Dorothy wear during the ordeal. Frank is a foul-mouthed, violent sociopath whose orgasmic climax is a fit of both pleasure and rage. When Frank leaves, a saddened and desperate Dorothy tries to seduce Jeffrey again. She demands that