PhilaMOCA to celebrate 35 years of Twin Peaks with screenings and Michael Horse

One of our own

The master filmmaker, of course, lived in Philadelphia when he was a young art student, and while he never made a feature film locally, he was long associated with the city, the neighborhood, and even the PhilaMOCA venue. The look of the neighborhood where he lived was said to have inspired his breakthrough film Eraserhead, to the point where the neighborhood took on the name “The Eraserhood.”

PhilaMOCA, which is based in that neighborhood, for many years hosted an annual Eraserhood Forever show, along with other Lynch-related programming. Lynch made a private visit to the venue when he came to Philadelphia in 2014.

“A lot of people were immediately asking for screenings, like, that week, but that didn’t feel appropriate for me,” Bresler said of Lynch’s passing. Other local venues appear to feel similarly; while the Philadelphia Film Society has set a series this spring of films that inspired Lynch, they have announced that their full-on Lynch retrospective will wait for later this year.

Coming up at PhilaMOCA is an event not pegged to Lynch’s death, but rather the 35th anniversary of the debut of his masterwork TV series, Twin Peaks. On April 8, 35 years to the day after that 1990 broadcast, PhilaMOCA will host an anniversary event, featuring an appearance by Michael Horse, who played Deputy Hawk on both the original Twin Peaks and its 2018 revival series.

Horse will host a Q&A, sign autographs, and display his artwork. The event will feature a Philadelphia performance by the Ghostwood Orchestra, a New Jersey-based nine-piece ensemble that will play music inspired by Twin Peaks. DJ From Another Place will spin in between acts.

Bresler said that with the anniversary coming up, the event was in the works even before Lynch’s passing. But it appears likely that the filmmaker’s name will be on the minds of many in attendance.

“It will be nice to hear Michael’s thoughts on David Lynch, post-passing,” Bresler said. “I think that it may be like a somber event of sorts. But Michael Horse seems to have a way of uplifting everything, just in his manner of speech and his philosophy.”

Eraserhood forever

The Twin Peaks appreciation at PhilaMOCA will continue the following night with the local premiere of I Know Catherine, The Log Lady, a feature-length documentary about Catherine E. Coulson, the actress who played the Log Lady on Twin Peaks, while also appearing in other Lynch projects. The film, which features Lynch and other familiar faces as talking heads, follows everything from Coulson’s theater career to her last days when she filmed scenes for Twin Peaks: The Return while in the final stages of stage four lung cancer. The April 9 screening sold out, but an encore has been added for April 17.

On two different occasions over the years, PhilaMOCA had Eraserhead-based murals, although the new Lynch tribute mural that went up in late March on Buttonwood Street by artist Dennis McNett with Mural Arts Philadelphia is not associated with the venue.

Bresler said he’s considering a revival of the Eraserhood Forever show, which hasn’t taken place since the pandemic began. It’s also gotten him thinking about the venue’s unique relationship with that particular artist.

“We were so closely associated with David Lynch, for a few years there, that it was kind of making me uncomfortable, which was why I stepped away from doing these Lynch-themed events,” Bresler said, adding that the venue hosts a much wider variety of programming. But he remembered getting an email from an event attendee who thanked him for “promoting David Lynch’s work before he was this endlessly meme-ified entity on social media.”

“I never thought about that,” he added. “Despite how famous David Lynch has always been, we were kind of ahead of the curve in doing these public tributes to him.” The venue’s wall of Lynch memorabilia was taken down at one point, but it will go back up for the event on April 8.

A chat with Michael Horse

Leading up to the event, we spoke with Michael Horse—an actor, artist, painter, and jeweler, best known for his role as Deputy Tommy “Hawk” Hill on Twin Peaks and Twin Peaks: The Return—from his home near northern Minnesota.

BSR: I've written about a couple of times over the years, where it just seems like Twin Peaks' fandom is different from any other fandom. A lot of it has to do with—there just weren't any new shows for all that time. And so people discovered it at different ages. What are your reflections on that and just the interactions you've had with fans over the years? How is Twin Peaks fandom different?

MH: I don't do a lot of the fan side of things. But sometimes I'll show up and it's never about fame. It's about being in David's world. I mean, I got Walker, Texas Ranger fans who scare the shit out of me, they’re like, ‘Will you sign my baby?’

It’s interesting that young people really like it now. Because it’s slow. And I realize that you cannot multitask and watch Twin Peaks. You cannot be on your phone. I know that sometimes that's a brand new experience for younger people that they have to totally be immersed into the Twin Peaks world and I think that's fascinating to them.

BSR: When it comes to The Return, what was it like to step into that role again after 25 years?

MH: You know, it was amazing. People would ask me, do you think that Twin Peaks should come back again? And I thought, maybe it didn't, I thought, it died before its time and had that kind of James Dean mystique about it. I think if it would have come back before 25 years, it wouldn't have had the impact. But it was like no time had left at all.

BSR: So the event in Philadelphia is on April 8, 2025, which is the exact 35th anniversary of the debut of Twin Peaks. Does it feel like it’s been 35 years?

MH: It feels like less. It feels like I have to sometimes put in perspective that was so long ago and so many changes in my life have happened in that span of things but it seems like only yesterday to me.

BSR: And finally, any other reflections on the passing of David Lynch?

MH: Just what an exceptional person he was. And you know, it's been such a joy and an honor just to be a small dot of color on that man's amazing palette. I am so, so grateful. You don’t get a chance to do art on television. But if I never did anything else ever in my career again to just be a part of Twin Peaks, it's just so, so special to me. But David was a kind man, he was a very kind and very gentle man.