MovieChat Forums > Lost Highway (1997) Discussion > Watching Lost Highway Backwards...[spoil...

Watching Lost Highway Backwards...[spoilers ]


Yes, I literally watched the movie backwards. I took a digital copy and ran the video and audio in reverse. It was 10x more entertaining than any of the 'other place' scenes from Twin Peaks. Subtitles would have helped, though. This is a long post, prepare yourself.
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Fred eludes the police and delivers a message conveying that Dick Laurent is alive to his own house. He then raises Dick Laurent from the dead and shoves him in the trunk of a car then forces him to have sex with Renee at gunpoint.

Fred drives out into the desert and meets up with the Mystery Man, who says a few words and transforms him into Pete.

Alice wanders out of the mystery cabin and has passionate sex with Pete in the middle of the desert. The first time is always the best time. Blue lightning flashes around them.

Alice goes to check the cabin to find it empty, so she and Pete walk backwards down the steps to the car and drive in reverse all the way to Andy's place. An unfortunate gas leak on the stove causes the entire cabin to burst into flames shortly after they leave as the mini-bar in the corner turns itself on.

Pete and Alice arrive at Andy's to find he has accidentally thrown his forehead into the corner of a sharp glass table. Alice remembers that she has borrowed a few things from Andy, so she puts them back in his house. Pete suddenly starts having a bloody nose, so he runs upstairs to the bathroom to clean up. He accidentally walks into one of the bathrooms where it appears two people are having sex. Alice disrobes while he is upstairs so they can have a quickee.

Pete isn't able to find the bathroom and starts to have a terrible headache. He sees Alice and her twin sister Renee in a photograph. Pete discovers Alice has been in pornographic movies, and the blood on his upper lip shoots back up into his nose. Suddenly, Andy springs to life and Pete is forced to throw him off him. Alice decides she needs to slip into something less revealing. Andy gets up AGAIN and begins fighting Pete, who manages to slip away behind the bar. Andy, completely unaware he had been clinically dead for several hours struts back upstairs.

Pete watches a few more of Alice's porno movies and decides to take off. Andy standing up after being dead would freak anybody out. Eyeing his watch, Pete discovers he can make the very last bus out of the neighborhood. Back at home, tears shoot up into Pete's eyes as he regrets leaving Alice there with that jerk Andy.

Pete is about to call one of his friends to vent his sadness when he discovers someone is already on the other line. It was some oddball and Mr. Eddy, telling him it's okay that he sees Alice, and the less it's made known, the happier everyone will be. Pete runs outside backwards, trips, falls, and his friend Sheila confesses her love for him and helps him up. Then without saying anything, the crazy girl decides to hang out with Pete's parents while he runs off to meet with Alice at a seedy motel.

During their conversation laced with kisses, Alice tells Pete about how she broke it off with Andy and Mr. Eddy. Apparently, she was about to pleasure Mr. Eddy when some guy with a gun ran up to her and forced her to put all of her clothes back on and leave the premises. As soon as it is said, Pete forgets about everything Alice has told him about her past. He was thinking about cars, or how much he loves saxophone jazz.

Later back at home, Alice calls Pete to tell him Dick doesn't know dick about them meeting up. Later at work, Mr. Eddy reminds Pete again that he doesn't know anything about Pete and Alice meeting up.

The guilt begins to sink in about his sexual liasons with Alice. That night, Pete has a sit-down with his parents who warn him that in a few days he will appear out of a burst of lightning and run back into the house to say hello to his friend Sheila who still likes hanging with his parents. Frightened of this truth, Pete decides to see Sheila and proceeds to furiously bone her thanks to his training from Alice. Of course, Pete completely forgets everything his parents have told him. That boy smokes so much pot he has no short-term memory!

Back at home, Pete sees a black widow spider crawl backwards down the stairs and see strange blue lights that make up Alice's face. Suddenly, she calls him at home to tell him that she will have sex with him for the next few days. Everything goes according to plan until Pete brings her back to the shop. Alice calls a taxi and takes off, seeming a little more distant than before.

The next day, Pete sees her at the shop getting into Mr. Eddy's car. Furious at seeing this, Pete begins to hatch a plan to get back at him. He needs music to get his concentration going, so he switches on the radio playing a bit of crazy saxophone jazz. Pete's favorite.

Later that night, Pete sees Sheila again and uses her for her body like the true womanizer he is. Between the two of them, an entire pack of cigarettes were pulled from their lungs and put back into the pack. Afterwards, they put their clothes back on and decide to cool things off for while. Pete drops her off at her house, unaware that he was following an unmarked police car the entire time.

A few detectives minding their own business discover they are unwittingly being followed by a young mechanic named Pete Drayton. Wherever they go, he seems to show up just before they do or even begins following them around town.

At his parents' house, Pete starts staring at himself in the mirror. "It's time to get back at Mr. Eddy" he thinks to himself. Pete gets into the car, and the forthcoming Mr. Eddy insists they go for a ride.

Driving down the winding Mulholland, Mr. Eddy drives past a crying man lying on the side of the road who looks like he has been assaulted. They all jump out of the car to investigate. Mr. Eddy jumps out, his guards training guns on the crying man. Mr. Eddy slaps the crying man and tells him to not even bother following the rules of the road. He throws the crying man back into his car, and his guard fixes the driver side window. As a kind gesture, the crying man begins tailgating and honking his horn, gives Mr. Eddy the finger, and drives off into the sunset. What a kind man Mr. Eddy is!

Back in town, Mr. Eddy slows to a halt at a traffic light. Pete offers to look at his engine for free. Picking just the right spot, he sabotages the car. In no time, the rough riding of the engine will cause the trash heap to fall apart. Sure enough, the detectives just so happen to be sitting at the curb when Pete and Mr. Eddy drive by. They must be being followed! Mr. Eddy thanks Pete and wishes luck in his trans-dimensional journey he is about to embark upon. Feeling a little concerned, the two detectives decide to avoid Arnie's for awhile.

On the way over to the bowling alley to meet Sheila, a gigantic mosquito bites Pete right on the forehead. Joan River's entire make-up collection wouldn't be able to cover it up. Even though Sheila knows Pete is about to disappear into a flash of blue lightning, she still has feelings for him and kisses him. The entire gang escorts Pete back home, some of them regurgitating liquor into flasks for him to take on his journey.

The next day, Pete is charged with harassing and stalking police detectives. His parents take the spirit-drained boy to the local maximum security penitentiary where the warden ensures Pete's parents that they may never see their son again. After rough him up a little, they throw Pete into the cell and decree that everything is perfectly normal.

During the night, the strange flash of blue light does occur, like predicted! Pete Drayton disappears from the cell and turns up in the middle of the desert, being replaced by none other than Fred Madison! We then see a mysterious person enter a cabin, which shortly after bursts into flames. Curtain close. It couldn't be! No one was in that cabin when it burst into flames!

Stoned off their balls, the guards decide to check on Pete. Not sure what he looks like, the guard shrugs it off. A rather pissed off Fred Madison is then brought to the prison hospital where a mysterious piece of medicine is pulled out of his body. He is then thrown back into his cell. Days later, it is discovered the jail has housed the wrong man. Fred is acquitted of charges of killing his wife, Renee.

As soon as Fred gets back home, he takes out the video cassette that shows himself killing his wife Renee. As it turns out, the video was a gift from a friend of Dick Laurent's. After watching, Fred puts the tape back in its discreet envelope and puts it back on the front steps of the house. As Renee is getting ready to head to Andy's, Fred wanders into a dark part of the house to change clothes. What a hell of a party, having to take his drunk wife to some other dude's house only to have her regurgitate the alcohol.

As the Madisons are taking off from the house, strange lights are seen upstairs. Arriving in a hurry like always, the Madisons greet Andy at his place with the party already in full swing. Right when he gets there, Fred tells Andy that Dick Laurent is very much alive, and tells him to forget he ever said he was dead. In fact, just the other day Fred saw him spring to life right in front of his eyes, and it's not right to lie to your wife's friends.

Out of nowhere, the guy Fred saw walk into the exploding cabin hands him a phone connected to his own house. Fred then dials his phone number in reverse, making it seems as though no one had even picked up the phone at home. Out of sight, out of mind. The strange man in make-up then converses with Fred and convinces him they have never met before. Fred then regurgitates a few shots of liquor, takes money and a generous tip from the bartender. He then picks a cigarette from the ashtray and walks back to talk to Renee with an empty glass she planned on stealing from Andy.

Later that morning, detectives show up at the house in hopes of forgetting everything they know about the Madisons. Fred stays inside while Renee distracts them, taking them all around all the windows of the house. Fred then rescinds anything he ever said about video cameras. This gives the detectives an idea that Fred in fact is a closet video camera enthusiast. The worried couple show the video tape, but the thing practically puts the detectives to sleep, and they immediately forget everything they saw. Bored out of their wits, the detectives decide to go back to home base and hope some junked out kid isn't going to start following them around too.

Fred and Renee watch the tape of their property one more time, just for closure. Then Renee walks back outside and puts it on the front steps, hoping whoever shot the video tape will take it away. Later that night, Fred has a dream that he is in bed with the strange man he met at Andy's party, only to awake disappointed that he is still with his wife. Then he dreams about wandering into the bedroom at night and killing her and disappearing into the night with the aid of a fog machine.

Fred is roused from sleep to wake up to his wife extracting semen from her uterus and forcing it back into him. The experience is extremely painful, as Fred has no idea how many other men had used his wife's vagina in that day alone. The next morning, Renee and Fred take another one of their gift tapes and watch it. Renee cautiously places it back on the front steps.

That night, Fred leaves for the night club where he is playing his sax. Unable to rouse Renee from slumber, he slips into the night alone. Just before his performance, Fred tries to call the house, but Renee does not answer the phone. Looks like she isn't coming to see him tonight. After a stunning performance, Fred is back at home asking what Renee was about to do before he was playing at the club. She erases any doubts from his mind that she is being unfaithful, so Fred goes back to practicing for the next performance.

Then the strangest thing happens. Someone repeats the message Fred delivered to his own house! But no one else saw him do it! Why would someone else do it again? Sitting to ponder how anyone could know Dick is running around this world alive and free, Fred fires smoke out his lungs and rebuilds yet another cigarette.

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[deleted]

Lol! Love it!

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Spoilers?

"FUNNY HOW SECRETS TRAVEL..." and "Facts are STUBBORN things" - Ronald Reagan

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LOL's!!! That was great!!


Next time you see me, it won't be me

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Haha very nice!

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Hilarious! Very well done!
I especially like characters taking cigarettes from ashtrays, regurgitating booze, sucking up tears and of course, extracting semen from her uterus and forcing it back into him.

Thanks!

We've met before, haven't we?

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Possibly this might lead to another interpretation of the movie.

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Long post.

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Loved it!


Next time you see me, it won't be me

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