Fear Factor

Lost Highway was one of the most unnerving and creepy films I have watched in the last couple of years. The film was not like most horror, or maybe thriller would be the better genre for the movie, films because the thing that was causing all the paranoia and fear was just a person. To be clear, the mystery man is no ordinary person as made obvious by the scene when Fred first met the mystery man in a party where he was both at the party and inside Fred’s house to answer the phone call. In my opinion, this first encounter of Fred and the mystery man perfectly introduced the audience to the main antagonist of the film because we were able to see what was stalking the couple and he was just as creepy as I imagined him to be if not more. This creepy vibe from the mystery man perfectly coincides with the film’s feel because the movie does not try to scare its audience outright by showing a scary figure or shocking them with jump scares like most horror movies employ today. Instead, the movie relies on keeping the audience on its toes and always making them think that something scary is going to happen even though nothing usually does. I’m not saying that the film does not use these things at all because I think we were all shocked and terrified when the mystery man’s face replaced that of Renee after Fred and her did the deed, but these are not their main methods in keeping the audience on the edge of their seats. A good example of the film makers building up the tension without actually showing anything scary is during the scene where Fred and his wife, Renee, go outside their room and look into the vast darkness of the hallway. This scene was one of the most stressful and disturbing sequences for me because I had no idea what was going to happen next. There were so many possible outcomes to that scene such as the mystery man popping out that I could not prepare myself for what was to come. In the end, nothing really happened in the dark hallway except for the couple walking through it. All in all, I think Lost Highway is one of my favorite “horror” movies that I have ever watched because of how it builds up the tension as well as misdirection to make the audience lower their guard for their more terrifying scenes to be more impactful. Another noteworthy thing about the film is how they tie up all, or at least most, of the loose ends they scattered throughout the film. From the message Fred receives at home that Dick Laurent is dead to the different dreams that Fred has, we see the importance of all of these things come later on in the film and even though there may be some scenes where the audience are confused with what the meaning is as to why these were shown, the film makers did a great job at tying everything together. I hope that more modern horror films try to emulate the fear inducing method that was used in Lost Highway because it is, in my opinion, how real horror can be achieved.