(1997) The ribbon of roadway can seem endless at night on an otherwise deserted stretch in California as the center stripes pass beneath the headlights. Listening after the front-door buzzer sounds, Fred Madison (Bill Pullman) hears a voice say: "Dick Laurent is dead."

In a crimson dress, his red-haired wife Renee (Patricia Arquette) says she'd prefer to stay home and read in their sparsely furnished (like the dialogue), ultramodern home while Fred plays jazz on his tenor saxophone at the Luna Lounge; but when he calls home, she doesn't answer. She's asleep in their bed when he returns home.

In the morning outside on the front stairs she finds an anonymous envelope containing a videotape with a brief view of the front of their home near the observatory. Fred (after an inability to perform sexually) tells Renee of his strange dream of finding her in bed, except the face wasn't hers. After another tape appears, this one showing them sleeping in their bed, filmed from above, they call the police; two detectives, Al and Ed, investigate.

During the interview, Fred makes a curious, revealing admission to the cops that he doesn't own a video camera because "I like to remember things my own way," not necessarily the way they happened.

At a party in the home of thin-mustached Andy (Michael Massee), someone Renee met long before at Moke's place, the Mystery Man (Robert Blake) walks up to Fred, asking if he recalls their having met before "at your house," where he says he'd been invited; in fact, the Mystery Man says he's at Fred's even now, giving Fred his mobile phone to verify his word: "I told you I was there." Next Andy tells Fred he's a friend of Dick Laurent.

This fractured, fantasy horror of a thrilling mystery - containing images to gouge your eyes (ghastly and gruesome murder scenes) or gorge them with the fleshscape of Miss Arquette (as well as Marilyn Manson and Twiggy Ramirez performing together from a porno tape) - is another of director David Lynch's enigmatic creations, co-written with Barry Gifford, featuring emotionally distant characters. (French filmmaker Michael Haneke's 2005 "contradictory reality" film Caché appears to have been spawned from Lynch's movie: it also involves a couple, having the surname Laurents, who receive anonymous videotapes.)

Fred finds a third videotape on which he's shown killing his wife. Sentenced to be executed in the electric chair, Fred inside his solitary cell has trouble sleeping and suffers from terrible headaches; hallucinating, he sees a cabin burning in the desert. The following day a guard reports a spooky occurrence: inside Madison's cell is a different person, Pete Dayton (Balthazar Getty), a 24-year-old mechanic.

Released, Pete goes home with his parents (Gary Busey and Lucy Butler) and returns to work at the garage for Arnie (Richard Pryor, in his final feature-film appearance), who gets around in an electric wheelchair.

Big shot Mr Eddy (Robert Loggia) pulls up in his Mercedes with two other men, requesting Pete ("best damn ears in town") get in for a drive to make adjustments to the engine. On a narrow, winding road Mr Eddy takes offense from another driver's following too closely; after the vehicle passes (with the driver flipping him the bird), Mr Eddy overtakes and rams the car from behind, eventually causing the car to come to a halt where, after his two companions beat up the driver, Mr Eddy delivers a severe tongue lashing: "Tailgating is one thing I cannot tolerate."

A pair of cops, Lou and Hank, tailing Pete (who declines Mr Eddy's offer of a porno tape), recognize Mr Eddy as Dick Laurent. Wearing a black leather jacket and sporting sideburns, Pete takes his girl Sheila (Natasha Gregson Wagner) for a drive, pulling her close like in a '50s film. The next day at the garage Mr Eddy shows up with his Caddy and a platinum blonde, Alice Wakefield (Patricia Arquette), who immediately communicates magnetic attraction with Pete.

In a taxi Alice returns; initially she suggests dinner, but they skip the meal for a hotel room. Subsequent to another tryst, Alice calls Pete, expressing her worry that Mr Eddy suspects something; Mr Eddy then makes a point of telling Pete what he'd do if he found anyone was messing around with Alice.

Saying she wants them to go away together (describing how she was first introduced to Mr Eddy and forced to strip naked), Alice suggests an easy target for a robbery ("Our ticket out of here"), a guy she knows from Moke's who makes porno films for Mr Eddy.

Pete's parents ask him if he remembers anything about that strange night when he disappeared, but when he says his memory's a blank, they can't bring themselves to describe what they and Sheila witnessed. A phone call for Pete from Mr Eddy and the Mystery Man begins similarly to the one with Fred. Pete opens the door to room 25 in the Lost Highway Hotel. "There's no such thing as a bad coincidence," contributes a cop.

Click here for links to places to buy or rent this movie in video and/or DVD format, or to buy the soundtrack, posters, books, even used videos, games, electronics and lots of other stuff. I suggest you shop at least two of these places before buying anything. Prices seem to vary continuously. For more information on this film, click on this link to The Internet Movie Database. Type in the name of the movie in the search box and press enter. You will be able to find background information on the film, the actors, and links to much more information.

Copyright © 2009 Patrick Ivers. All rights reserved.
Reproduced with the permission of the copyright holder.

Patrick Ivers can be reached via e-mail at .