All 10 David Lynch Movies Ranked By Weirdness
4. Lost Highway
Similar to Mulholland Drive, Lost Highway is a movie where everything inexplicably changes halfway through, including people’s identities.
Fred (Bill Pullman) is a jazz musician sentenced to death for the murder and dismemberment of his wife Renee (Patricia Arquette). But on a stormy night on death row, Fred transforms into Pete (Balthasar Getty), a young mechanic. How does this metamorphosis occur? Good luck explaining that!
The rest of the movie follows our new boyish hero, Pete, as he gets embroiled in a Blue Velvet-style underworld caper, replete with perverted crime boss (Robert Loggia) and femme fatale (also played by Patricia Arquette, but with different hair than earlier…).
By the end Pete has transformed back to Fred. Fred then arrives back to his own house and speaks the movie’s opening lines into his intercom, seemingly setting off the events of the movie all over again. No clear resolutions here, just an unending, nightmarish loop for poor Fred.
Weirdest Bit: The scene where Fred first meets the ghoulish Mystery Man (Robert Blake) could be straight out of any horror movie. Standing face to face, the Mystery Man tells Fred he’s at his home right now. Fred rings his home phone, and you’ll never guess who answers the call… (correct, it’s the Mystery Man).