10 Movies That Used Your Imagination Against You
3. Lost Highway
No one comes to a David Lynch movie expecting answers, but some of the King of Weird’s output is a little more accessible than the rest. For one thing, the man can write a damn fine villain for his stories, convoluted and bizarre as they are.
Whether it’s Dennis Hopper huffing gas and inhaling scenery while he’s at it or BOB (and later JUDY) of Twin Peaks fame, Lynch knows a thing or two about setting up a story with a recognizable evil for our heroes to defeat.
All of which serves to make Lost Highway even more strange, frustrating, and admittedly a little genius. Initially we may think our protagonist is a bit of a tool, but ultimately decent and besieged by a mysterious unnamed man who plagues his life. But then when he body-surfs into another person apropos of nothing at the film’s midpoint, the plot switches gears so hard that the audience is left reeling, and the line between heroes, villains, and co-conspirators becomes blurrier than the film’s haunting closing images.