Lost Highway

Bizarre and difficult to decipher, this noirish thriller from iconoclastic filmmaker David Lynch is set in a large, unnamed work-a-day city that bears close resemblance to Los Angeles and centers on sax player Fred Madison (Bill Pullman) and his wife Renee (Patricia Arquette). Their lives are methodically being destroyed by a stranger who repeatedly delivers them terrifying videotapes containing disturbingly intimate views of their lives. This creates rapidly escalating tension that culminates in the murder of Renee and the subsequent incarceration of Fred who waits on Death Row in a dingy little cell. While awaiting his fate, Fred is tortured by terrifying visions. With neither warning, nor explanation, Fred is suddenly replaced by 18-year-old Pete (Balthazar Getty). As Pete committed no crime, the guards have no choice but to free him. The boy quickly returns to his job as an auto mechanic at the garage owned by wheelchair-bound Arnie. Pete moonlights by working with Mr. Eddy, a local gangster. Trouble begins when Pete falls for Eddy's blonde-bombshell moll Alice Wakefield (also played by Arquette). The classic femme fatale, Alice seduces Pete into committing several increasingly devious crimes.