10 Terrifying Scenes In Psychological Thrillers

Mulholland Drive is David Lynch's undisputed masterpiece and like most of his work, is equally frustrating, beautiful, thought provoking and deeply disturbing. In a nutshell, Mulholland Drive follows the strange tale of Betty, a hopeful, wide-eyed new arrival in Hollywood and Rita, amnesiac survivor of a late night car crash on the eponymous road.

What follows is a mixture of Twin Peaks, Blue Velvet and Lost Highway, the culmination of decades of surrealist work, boiled down to its essence.

In a seemingly unrelated sequence, a man and his therapist meet at Winkie's diner, where the man attempts, like Lynch, to explain a dream. In the dream, the man and his therapist sit in the diner, just like the reality they are in now - he can see who is 'causing' everything and that this person is behind the diner itself and can be seen through the wall.

The man is clearly terrified of this dream becoming a reality and says cryptically: "I hope I never see that face ever, outside of a dream..." From this one line, our imagination begins to piece together what this terrifying vision might be, and Lynch doesn't disappoint. As the two men decide to investigate, the dream becomes real and the man falls to the ground, literally scared to death.

The scene is all about the mounting tension, and Lynch has us wound tighter than a snare drum. It's a uniquely terrifying moment in cinema, even if it takes some investigation to understand how this sequence relates to the larger plot.