Sublime terror and the gothic in David Lynch's early short film The Alphabet.

The article focuses on the role of the gothic as a central mode of artistic expression in David Lynch's early short films, particularly analyzing his 1968 film *The Alphabet*. It argues that the film's thematic and stylistic use of sublime terror, surreal imagery, and grotesque distortions of the human form are crucial for understanding Lynch's evolving cinematic language and his broader oeuvre. Drawing on gothic theory and the concept of the sublime—especially Edmund Burke's notion of "pleasurable terror"—the article situates *The Alphabet* within Lynch's experimental approach to film, highlighting its evocation of alienation, abjection, and the uncanny through fragmented, dreamlike sequences. The analysis emphasizes how Lynch's early shorts resist conventional narrative and commercial filmmaking, instead using visual and auditory dissonance to explore themes of fear, death, and the collapse of normative order.