Lost Highway (1997) on Netflix
Fred Madison, a jazz saxophonist, lives in the Hollywood Hills with his wife Renee. Videotapes of their house keep arriving, and a pale man at a party claims they have met before.
- Netflix3.3/5
- IMDb7.6/10173,370 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes69%
Trailer
Plot summary
A voice on the intercom tells saxophonist Fred Madison that Dick Laurent is dead, and he hears tires screeching outside his house in the Hollywood Hills. Fred lives there with his wife Renee, and he is suspicious of her friendship with Andy. Unmarked videotapes begin arriving on the porch with footage of the inside of the house, and the detectives they call find no answers. At a party at Andy's house, a pale man tells Fred that they have met before and that he is at Fred's house at that moment; when Fred phones home, the man answers the call. Andy says the visitor knows Dick Laurent. Fred and Renee leave the party.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Lost Highway (1997)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Lost Highway was partially inspired by the murder trial of O. J. Simpson and Simpson's ability to return to his normal life afterward, and the scene where Fred hears the words “Dick Laurent is dead” over his intercom came from a similar incident at Lynch's own house, which he ended up using as a shooting location.
- Robert Loggia had previously expressed interest in playing Frank Booth in Lynch's Blue Velvet; on learning he had lost that role to Dennis Hopper he launched a profanity-laden rant at Lynch, and the outburst inspired Mr. Eddy's road rage scene here.
- Scenes set in Fred and Renee's mansion were filmed at Lynch's own home in the Hollywood Hills, which was configured for the film: a corridor leading to the bedroom was added and the façade was remodeled with slot windows to make Fred's point of view very limited.
- Smashing Pumpkins frontman Billy Corgan wrote the song “Eye” for the film only after Lynch rejected an early version of the song “Tear”, which the band put on its 1998 album Adore.
- Lynch's filmography inspired the Silent Hill video game series, and Lost Highway specifically served as an inspiration for Silent Hill 2 in 2001.
SPOILER
The scene where Fred transforms into Pete was achieved without CGI: a makeup artist built a fake head covered in artificial brain matter, and footage of it was intercut with shots of Bill Pullman to create the effect in-camera.- The first cut of the film ran for 180 minutes, and a test audience of 50 people was given a preview to allow Lynch an idea of what needed to be cut; the film was ultimately cut down to 130 minutes.
