(There are Spoilers) Not really a story but a mind altering nightmare for jazz saxophone player Fred Madison, Bill Pullman. Fred goes through a life-changing experience that has him go through the film at first as a victim of a brutal crime where his wife Renee, Patricia Arquette, is murdered. Then later Fred become a participant of another murder of porno film maker Andy, Michael Massee. It's after that where he's evolved into an entirely different person altogether! Then later back to being himself Fred Madison as he again becomes involved in yet another brutal killing in the slashing/shooting of a murderous mob boss Eddy aka Dick Laurent! All this is with the help of this creeped-out looking Mystery Man, Robert Blake, who pops up in the movie in a number of scenes, unannounced and unexpected. The Mystery Man looking like he was made up to be an over-aged and over plastered Japanese Geisha Girl.
The nightmare begins for Fred when he receives in the mail, with no forwarding or return address, a video tape of his house an later another tape of not only his house but himself and his wife Renee sleeping in bed. Going to the police Fred is told that they can really do nothing since no crime, other then voyeurism, was committed. Earlier we see Fred invited to this strange party where he's introduced to a friend of Renee named Andy who in turn introduces him to the Mystery Man. The Mystery Man tells Fred that he not only knows where he lives but that at this very moment he's in Fred and Renee's house! Calling home on the Mystery Man's cell phone Fred is answered by the Mystery Man himself who seems to be at two places at the same time!
As both we and Fred are trying to figure what exactly is happening in this weird movie that were watching he's suddenly arrested for the murder of his wife Renee and put on death row, without the benefit of a trial and conviction, waiting execution. Freaking out to whats happening to him Fred then seems to morph into a much younger man named Peter Dayton, Balthazar Getty, in his jail cell. The warden then has no choice but to let him go free. We then learn that Peter was arrested some time ago for car theft, and given a years probation, and lives with his parents William and Candace Dayton, Gary Busey & Lucy Butler. Peter also has this hot to trot girlfriend Sheila, Natasha Gregson Wagner, who's always taking off her clothes when she's with him as both her and Peter are almost always eagerly making out with each other. If it wasn't for Fred coming back on the scene later in the movie I had the feeling that actor Bill Pullman walked off the set being disgusted in what he was offered to play in the film and was replaced by actor Balthazar Getty without the writer/director David Lynch not bothering to re-shoot the scenes with Pullman in them!
It turns out that Peter is a crack a jack car mechanic working at Arnie's, played by a wheelchair bound Richard Pryor, garage who's very well regarded by gangster Eddy aka Dick Laurent, Robert Loggia, for his mechanical abilities in fixing his car. Eddy is a hair triggered hot tempered hood who you don't mess around with. We see him in action later when he works over this tailgater on the highway, who also gave Eddy the finger, by first ramming his car and then beating and pistol whipping the guy almost within a inch of his life.
Eddy is also seen at the garage with this blond bombshell of a woman Alice Wakefield who's his personal squeeze and gun moll, also played by Miss Arquette. Alice get's Peter so turned on and excited and ready to go into action that he can't seem to keep his mind on his work for even a moment. Peter is instead played by Alice like first-class sucker in having him not only risk his life and freedom but also lose his overly friendly and sexually active girlfriend Sheila.
Playing around with his moll behind his back can have the loose wired Eddy put an end to Peters life with a gun stuck up so hard and far up his behind and then having his brains, like Eddy told him, blown out of his head. The manipulating Alice also wants Peter to murder her former porn movie producer Andy and then take off with her to this creepy hotel in Death Valley and from there take off to Mexico. Thats after a night of fun and games in the sack, or in the desert, with her that turns the cool night temperature of the area up some 50 degrees.
Getting all that she wanted from him including murdering Andy Alice then leaves Peter with his pants, in fact all his clothes, off and takes off leaving him to his fate; being murdered by her outraged lover Eddy. It's just then Peter turns into Fred and the Mystery Man, camcorder in hand, shows up together with a couple of cops looking into Renee's, remember her, murder and what at first seemed like a dream or better yet nightmare becomes a reality.
Very strange movie that doesn't make any sense at all until the ending that gives you the impression that it was all some kind of hallucination on Fred's part. In that the entire story was the result of him being on drugs or somehow hypnotized until he finally snapped out, or the drugs wore off. It was then that he finally realized what he did! As the mysterious saying at the start of the film "Dick Laurent Is Dead" takes on a whole new meaning when it's repeated, by Fred, just as "Lost Highway" finally, after 135 minutes, comes to an end.
The nightmare begins for Fred when he receives in the mail, with no forwarding or return address, a video tape of his house an later another tape of not only his house but himself and his wife Renee sleeping in bed. Going to the police Fred is told that they can really do nothing since no crime, other then voyeurism, was committed. Earlier we see Fred invited to this strange party where he's introduced to a friend of Renee named Andy who in turn introduces him to the Mystery Man. The Mystery Man tells Fred that he not only knows where he lives but that at this very moment he's in Fred and Renee's house! Calling home on the Mystery Man's cell phone Fred is answered by the Mystery Man himself who seems to be at two places at the same time!
As both we and Fred are trying to figure what exactly is happening in this weird movie that were watching he's suddenly arrested for the murder of his wife Renee and put on death row, without the benefit of a trial and conviction, waiting execution. Freaking out to whats happening to him Fred then seems to morph into a much younger man named Peter Dayton, Balthazar Getty, in his jail cell. The warden then has no choice but to let him go free. We then learn that Peter was arrested some time ago for car theft, and given a years probation, and lives with his parents William and Candace Dayton, Gary Busey & Lucy Butler. Peter also has this hot to trot girlfriend Sheila, Natasha Gregson Wagner, who's always taking off her clothes when she's with him as both her and Peter are almost always eagerly making out with each other. If it wasn't for Fred coming back on the scene later in the movie I had the feeling that actor Bill Pullman walked off the set being disgusted in what he was offered to play in the film and was replaced by actor Balthazar Getty without the writer/director David Lynch not bothering to re-shoot the scenes with Pullman in them!
It turns out that Peter is a crack a jack car mechanic working at Arnie's, played by a wheelchair bound Richard Pryor, garage who's very well regarded by gangster Eddy aka Dick Laurent, Robert Loggia, for his mechanical abilities in fixing his car. Eddy is a hair triggered hot tempered hood who you don't mess around with. We see him in action later when he works over this tailgater on the highway, who also gave Eddy the finger, by first ramming his car and then beating and pistol whipping the guy almost within a inch of his life.
Eddy is also seen at the garage with this blond bombshell of a woman Alice Wakefield who's his personal squeeze and gun moll, also played by Miss Arquette. Alice get's Peter so turned on and excited and ready to go into action that he can't seem to keep his mind on his work for even a moment. Peter is instead played by Alice like first-class sucker in having him not only risk his life and freedom but also lose his overly friendly and sexually active girlfriend Sheila.
Playing around with his moll behind his back can have the loose wired Eddy put an end to Peters life with a gun stuck up so hard and far up his behind and then having his brains, like Eddy told him, blown out of his head. The manipulating Alice also wants Peter to murder her former porn movie producer Andy and then take off with her to this creepy hotel in Death Valley and from there take off to Mexico. Thats after a night of fun and games in the sack, or in the desert, with her that turns the cool night temperature of the area up some 50 degrees.
Getting all that she wanted from him including murdering Andy Alice then leaves Peter with his pants, in fact all his clothes, off and takes off leaving him to his fate; being murdered by her outraged lover Eddy. It's just then Peter turns into Fred and the Mystery Man, camcorder in hand, shows up together with a couple of cops looking into Renee's, remember her, murder and what at first seemed like a dream or better yet nightmare becomes a reality.
Very strange movie that doesn't make any sense at all until the ending that gives you the impression that it was all some kind of hallucination on Fred's part. In that the entire story was the result of him being on drugs or somehow hypnotized until he finally snapped out, or the drugs wore off. It was then that he finally realized what he did! As the mysterious saying at the start of the film "Dick Laurent Is Dead" takes on a whole new meaning when it's repeated, by Fred, just as "Lost Highway" finally, after 135 minutes, comes to an end.