Random Creepy Scene # 443: Lost Highway

To progressively complicate matters, Fred is then arrested and just before his execution he appears to morph into Balthazar Getty (we’ve all been there) as Pete Dayton, a young mechanic with sporadic amnesia and a penchant for gangster’s moll Alice (Arquette again).

The lives of Fred and Pete seem indelibly linked and strangely cross-referenced.
To try and provide a somewhat ‘succinct’ synopsis of this film would be to do it a great injustice. Lynch is primarily an artist and he often views his film work as an extension of his canvas. As such, Lost Highway is a dark and bleak voyage into one man’s depths of despair as he attempts to understand the workings of a world seemingly against him.
As Fred and Renee view the videotapes and things become even more steeped in anxiety a most discomforting and downright disturbing sex scene occurs. Seeming to highlight Fred’s unease and paranoia with his own wife, the scene plays out as he unsuccessfully attempts to make love to her. She rather tries to comfort him, and pats him on the back and says ‘its ok.’ As Fred turns to look at her he sees, for a split second, the face of the mysterious man who will confront him at the party…
What serves to make the scene even more perturbing is the soundtrack: a seemingly constant low rumbling drone that seeps into the subconscious and nestles there with dreadful intent...

Sex in the films of David Lynch often appears to have an underlying sense of creepiness and despair and is nearly always revealed as an insidiously sinister situation (Eraserhead, Blue Velvet, Fire Walk with Me). Never is this notion highlighted so much as in the opening scenes of Lost Highway that depict a marriage in crisis and unfurl as one of the most upsetting examples of marital strife and anxiety in film. Lost Highway is guaranteed to perplex, disturb, inspire and provoke with each successive viewing…
Comments
a bizarre encounter with a mysterious man at a party (who hands Fred a phone with, er Fred on the other end of the line)
It is, in fact, not Fred on the other end of the line but the mystery man himself. It's one of my favorite scenes in any movie and one I've virtually memorized. The mystery man tells Fred they've met before. Where? "At your house, remember? In fact, I'm there right now." Where? "At your house." The mystery man then tells Fred to dial his own house, which he does, and the man picks up on the other end. It's incredibly creepy and disturbing.
Christine, judging from the rather large faux pas in my post, you won't be the only one revisiting Lost Highway again soon! Give it another chance and just go with it. Hope you enjoy it.
Lynch's a genius.
I also think a number of scenes from Fire Walk With Me are amongst some of Lynch's most unsettling - particularly the scene when Laura enters her bedroom to find 'Bob' behind her wardrobe...
Thanks for stopping by.