10 Creepiest David Lynch Characters

David Lynch is such a talented director, and has such a grasp of what frightens people, that he can make you jump with something he has explicitly told you will happen for five minutes beforehand.

In one of Mulholland Drive's most iconic scenes, two friends (Herb and Dan) meet in a diner and discuss a recurring dream that Dan has been having. In this dream, they are in the diner, Winkie's, when Dan becomes aware of a man behind the building. He can see the man through the wall, and says, "He's the one who's doing this," though it is never revealed what the man is actually doing.

Herb suggests that Dan confronts this fear, and together, they take a slow, doom-laden walk to the back of the diner. Just before they reach the alleyway that runs behind Winkie's, a frightening, dirty figure appears from behind the wall and Dan falls to the ground, presumably dead of fear.

The scene is absolutely terrifying, with Patrick Fischler's strained telling of Dan's dream, Angelo Badalamenti's nightmarish score, and the unsteady camera movements all adding to the sense of dread. Herb and Dan's walk towards the back of Winkie's is as tense as any scene in film history, and when the man behind Winkie's finally appears, it is scary in spite of how expected it is.

The man appears again at the end of the film, cradling the plot-important blue box, but it's the first sight of him that lingers in the memory.