10 Creepiest David Lynch Characters

Mulholland Drive is arguably Lynch's best work. A fully realised, beautifully constructed look at the price of fame, it is poetic, disturbing, and mystifying all at once.

While it's more of a mystery than a horror film, there are plenty of weird and creepy aspects to the film, and one of the most unnerving is the Cowboy, a pale, eyebrowless man who dresses like an extra in a cheap Western and speaks in a soft yet authoritative voice. Struggling movie director Adam Kesher is directed to the Cowboy, who he meets at an abandoned ranch. The Cowboy speaks to him mostly in riddles, though he does urge Adam to cast a particular actress who is seemingly tied to the mob. He concludes the tense meeting by saying that if Adam does well, he will see the Cowboy once more, but if he does badly, he will see him twice.

With Mulholland Drive's twisting, multi-layered narrative, Adam does not see the Cowboy again, but the audience does. Just before Diane Selwyn awakens from her dream, the Cowboy appears in her room, and later, he passes by in the background of a dinner party.

As you would expect from a David Lynch film, there are no answers about the Cowboy. Is he someone working with the mob, or is he a supernatural entity? Do his subsequent two appearances imply that Adam made the wrong choice? We'll never know for sure. The only certainty is that no one in their right mind would want to drive to a dark, empty ranch to meet this bizarre, philosophical cowpoke.