David Lynch is one of the most talked about filmmakers of his generation. His films include Eraserhead, The Elephant Man, Blue Velvet, Wild at Heart, Lost Highway, and the newly released three-hour epic Inland Empire. His films dare to be more than just movies. They get inside the viewer’s head and become implanted in the memory. They hit the viewer on an emotional level, usually through the use of visual means. They feature career-best performances from exciting actors like Anthony Hopkins, Dennis Hopper, Isabella Rossellini, and Laura Dern. All of his films are truly special and offer unique, dream-like journeys for the viewer. Arguably his most successful film, and the one that really gets inside the viewer’s head, is his 2001 Oscar-nominated masterpiece Mulholland Drive.

Merely mentioning Mulholland Drive brings up many different ideas about what kind of genre it is. Is it a drama? A thriller? A love story perfect for Valentine’s Day? Many movies have one clear genre. Something’s Gotta Give and Notting Hill are romantic comedies. Once Upon a Time in the West and Unforgiven are westerns. West Side Story and The Sound of Music are musicals. These genre definitions are easy enough, but then there are possibilities of blurring between the lines. Is Hannah and Her Sisters a drama or a comedy? Is Alien science fiction, thriller, or horror? Is Space Cowboys a comedy, western, science fiction, or drama? As one can see, not every movie meets the clear genre standard, and David Lynch’s films are no different. Most of his films jump from one genre to the next seemingly in every scene, particularly in Mulholland Drive. One moment in the film, there will be a terrifying scene involving a homeless man (or woman) that feels like something from a horror film; the next, there will be a hilarious Tarantino-like scene involving a hit-man trying to get out a disastrous situation; the next, there will be a romantic love scene involving two women falling for one another. There is no movie quite like Mulholland Drive, and it doesn’t fit any one genre.

The title Mulholland Drive appears to be fairly ambiguous at first. The title could represent any number of genres, including a straight drama or science fiction film. It probably wouldn’t pertain to a comedy since the title has an ominous quality to it. The title immediately sets up that something is going to be wrong in this film, that someone or something is going to be hit hard with a giant conflict and circumstance. When one walks into a film directed by David Lynch entitled Mulholland Drive, he or she should get prepared for a mind trip unlike any other. The title represents a place in the film where the action begins. The reveal of the title is even mysterious—we see a shadow go over the street sign of Mulholland Drive. The music kicks in the mood, and then we see flashes of the winding road as credits roll over. The title is clearly seen from this point of view to mark a film that isn’t going to have its huge share of laughs. The title, along with the images and music, promise an eerie film. The title also brings to mind one of David Lynch’s favorite films Sunset Boulevard, which has a similar title. The interesting connection is that both films deal with the same subject matter, and they are clearly about the same thing, how the seeking of fame ultimately becomes one’s tragic downfall. Mulholland Drive is clearly a callback to the title of this early classic masterpiece, and both films, while dramatic and comedic at certain times, are really horror films at their cores. The film draws attention to its title by showing the road at the beginning of the film, and then toward the end of the film, where events seem to repeat themselves, only with a different character. The road is also referred to in dialogue sometimes. There is one scene in which one of the characters says “Mulholland Drive…” The other character asks what she means, and the character says, “That’s where I was going… Mulholland Drive…” While we never figure out just why that character was on that road or where she was going, the street clearly plays a major role in the film, and it is featured in the end where a character actually has a stop on the road, and she gets out of the car to walk up a hill and into a party atmosphere.

Summarizing Mulholland Drive is a bit like trying to defy gravity; summarizing any of David Lynch’s work is always difficult. The joy of watching of Lynch film is in the small details one must pay attention to the entire running time and then piecing everything together to make one giant puzzle come to life. Mulholland Drive represents one of his most ingenious puzzles, and one that is still worth discussing and taking apart. The film tells the story of a beautiful woman named Rita, played by Laura Elena Harring, who gets caught in the middle of a massive car wreck high up in Hollywood Hills, and she makes her way to safety by hiding out in an abandoned apartment in a complex. She hides under a desk and falls asleep, suddenly suffering amnesia. Meanwhile, an aspiring actress named Betty arrives in Los Angeles ready to become a star, and she has plans to stay at the same apartment, her Aunt Ruth’s, that the stranger Rita has made her into. Their lives intertwine at this moment, and Betty, instead of throwing Rita out on the street, becomes intrigued by her mysterious situation, and the two begin to solve the mystery of what happened to Rita on that fateful night. This is the storyline of Mulholland Drive in a nutshell, but it really just touches the surface on all the various characters, situations, and scenarios that the movie showcases. At the heart of this film is that central dynamic between Rita and Betty, but there is so much more to the proceedings, especially in the film’s final act, that the plot is worth exploring in an upcoming segment.

Summarizing the film is difficult because the experience of the film is so rich that boiling the entire story down to those few sentences really doesn’t do the two-and-a-half-hour film justice. The source of the story comes from a failed TV pilot that David Lynch wrote and directed way back in the late 90’s. The back-story on the film is actually very interesting. The film began as an eight-million-dollar hour-long TV pilot for ABC. Lynch has a history in television, with his beloved cult classic show Twin Peaks, and Mulholland Drive was meant to be his return to form in the television world. The pilot was rejected, however, and Lynch was left with half of a movie. Instead of just letting the show go to waste, Lynch received an addition seven million dollars to complete Mulholland Drive as a theatrically released feature film. While the television show would’ve clearly been a dynamic, fascinating program, it is hard to think of Mulholland Drive as anything other than a feature film. All of the themes introduced in the first half of the movie are paid off and addressed in the second, and all the events feel complete by the end of the movie. If there had been thirteen or more episodes of this storyline, overkill may have ensued. It is important, and was meant to be, that the film stayed just that—a feature film. The film has a relationship to the real world in subtle ways, but for the most part, Mulholland Drive exists on a dream level, never really existing in pure reality. Even in moments that feel entirely real, like, for example, a moment when Betty and Rita share coffee at a restaurant and look through a newspaper is filled with bouncy, uneasy camera movement, and the appearance of a blonde woman who looks mysteriously like Betty. Nothing is truly set in the real world throughout the movie, as everything is always on edge, always ready to drain any kind of reality away from the events on screen. In terms of being consistent with its own logic, Mulholland Drive more so than many other completely literal movies stays true to its dream-like logic from beginning to end. A lot of people look at David Lynch movies and think that he’s on crack, that he doesn’t care about the logic of the circumstances, and that he isn’t paying attention to how all the events in the storyline connect. More so than in any of his films, Mulholland Drive connects in a complex but beautiful way, and the motivations behind the complexity make for a stunning, breath-taking movie-going experience. The movie is not weird just to be weird. It has a message, it has meaning, and it goes further than many other movies could ever go. It digs down deep in the viewer’s mind and rests there for nearly three hours. When it’s over, the smart viewer will understand that he or she has just been given a winding, climbing, surreal adventure park ride, but also understand that the logic at the center of it all stands strong. Mulholland Drive is neither formulaic or clichéd, and the story is not only fresh but completely valid in this day and age. Hundreds of films are released theatrically each year that are formulaic, clichéd, a remake, a moronic choice to shoot and release. Lynch’s films are one-of-a-kinds, films that play on familiar themes but tell them in a new and invigorating style. There was a really bland way to tell the story of Mulholland Drive, but he takes a surreal and atmospheric approach that makes the movie absolutely spellbinding. Focus is paid close attention in every detail of every scene, from the crisp dialogue, to the pitch-perfect performances, to the cool lighting, to the haunting music. Lynch is a born filmmaker who knows what he’s doing, and he would rather die than write and direct a film that reeked of any kind of formulaic material.

The basic theme of the film is the rise and fall of Betty, a tragic character who never gets to truly become the person she decides she was meant to be. This main theme has been done before in movies and will be done in many more movies to come. The idea of someone who wants to reach a goal but fails has been around not just in movies forever and ever but also in our own lives as well. When we try to attain a dream and fail to do so, we feel hurt and disappointed; we feel like we deserved to make it as far as we did. Betty has the naiveté of a five-year-old upon arriving to Los Angeles, and she has absolutely no idea what she is getting into. She feels like she is going to step off that plane, go on an audition, impress the director, get the job, do well in the film, get notices, receive fan letters, become famous, and be a worshipped celebrity and honored film actress for the remainder of her lifetime. Betty is clearly not seeing things in the real world, and she has no sense of truly what it takes to become someone of such status in this town. She also has no idea about the pain and sacrifices it takes to become a major star in the world today. She is a tragic figure, and one that a lot of failed actors can completely identify with. The events totally relate to the real world and what people have to do with on a day-to-day basis. This kind of relation marks another reason why Mulholland Drive is a horror film, because the horror of not reaching one’s goals is completely terrifying in the eyes of many young people. The horror relates not just to aspiring actors but people in any profession, and even with those young and old. The horror of not becoming what one attains to be is something everybody is scared of in their lives at one time and another, and it is certainly the case with Betty in the film. The film appeals mostly to the viewer’s emotions because of its ever-fluctuating dream-like state, with an emphasis on fear in the viewer’s psyche. One feels while watching the movie that none of the characters is safe. Even in some of the more humorous scenes, like when a character bashes a car windshield and runs for his life, there is a sense of menace. Even if the effect is made purely through audio or visual or both, the film definitely works more in terms of emotion than the intellectual kind of viewing experience.

A film wouldn’t exist without its characters, and Mulholland Drive boasts a huge array of memorable characters all played by wonderful actors. The main characters to discuss are Betty, Rita, and Adam, three extremely complex characters. Betty, in a star-making turn by the impressive Naomi Watts, is an aspiring actress who would give the Leave It To Beaver mom a run for her money. She has a sweet naiveté about her that could brighten even brighten the day of Grumpy from Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. She doesn’t seem to have really any darkness in her life, even though she is totally consumed with pursuing an acting career. She is simply smitten to even be in Los Angeles at all, and take a shot at the American dream. What is the American dream to Betty? She wants to become both a famous celebrity and a respected actress. She wants everything to go exactly her way. She seems so comfortable with everything around her that she feels completely at ease when she discovers Rita in her abandoned apartment. She feels no fear toward her, and she wants to find out the mystery of Rita’s amnesia and figure out how exactly she got to where she is. Rita is a confused character, one filled with fear and melancholy. She needs all the help she can get to figure out her true identity and how she came to be on Mulholland Drive that fateful night. She exudes sensuality, as opposed to Betty’s more stay-at-home mom demeanor. She is the perfect antithesis to Betty, and the two work well together as they go about discovering new elements of her identity. Adam seems to be out of a completely different storyline, and we are surprised just how perfectly his situation fits in with Betty’s around the halfway point of the movie. He is a controlling film director who is commanding attention from A-list actresses for the lead role in his new film. He feels like he can get anybody he likes, but he finds himself in trouble when his controlling demeanor seems to get in the way of what other powerful people want for his movie. He is a perfectionist, and he just wants what is best for his movie, so when he comes to terms with the reality of the horrific situation he finds himself in, he doesn’t really know what to do at first. When he realizes that his life may be in danger, particularly in a memorable scene involving a cowboy (more on that later), he decides that maybe the best way to go is to play dumb and go along with the original plan. His character stands for someone who is independent and freethinking but who must ultimately become part of the bigger system before he is swallowed whole. He is everything that Betty wants to aspire to be as a film actress, but at least he got the position he was in through persistence and good work; Betty gets nowhere.

Instead of maneuvering through the plot scene by scene, trying to construct what each moment means in terms of genre and particularly looking at the horror genre, it is imperative to look at a select key sequences in the film to demonstrate first the different genres present throughout the film, and then the key sequences and moments that illustrate fully that Mulholland Drive is at its center a horror film. Even though the film goes all over the place from drama to romance to comedy to mystery (and even to musical), it is ultimately a horror film, and it will be explained why looking at a few important sequences in the film.

There are many examples of scenes in the film that bring to mind the horror genre, and the following are just a select few. The first scene to take a look at is an early eerie scene involving two men sitting at a diner restaurant called Winky’s. This scene, probably more so than any other scene in the film, showcases that Mulholland Drive isn’t just a horror film, it’s a terrifying horror film. This scene could work on its own level as a short film, with maybe a bookend that explained a little bit more. The cinematography of this scene presents the uneasiness right from the beginning, with odd roaming shots that bounce a little from left to right and right to left as the two men talk. This kind of cinematography creates a feeling of menace and foreboding. The sound is also key, too, because everything starts off so quiet, and as the men walk outside, down the steps, and over to the wall, the sound gets louder and louder, and the ambience becomes strong. The dialogue also strikes a nerve in the horror. The man describes himself as being scared, and then he talks about a man who he “can see through the wall.” He goes on to say, “I hope that I never see that face ever outside the dream.” This line of dialogue makes us wonder just what the face looks like, and the suspense of the following minute is unbearable. We are introduced to these two characters without knowing any back-story, who they are, or how they made it to the restaurant. All we get is this little short story that is in a way scarier than any blood or gore effect could deliver. The editing heightens the suspense in the last part of the scene, as we cut back and forth from the scared man to the wall. By the time we see the man’s face, we are so taken aback by the unbearable suspense that the sight of him makes us jump even more. The editor is smart in just showing the face for a split second, giving us a taste of a face we will see later on in the film. The scene ends with the scared man hitting the ground and apparently dying. He saw the face he was so afraid of, essentially facing his fear, and he died because of the courage. This scene reeks of horror from beginning to end and is a sure sign of the genre’s fresh face in the film.

Another creepy scene takes place out on a deserted ranch, where the film director Adam goes to speak with someone concerning the lead female role in his new movie. He arrives to see a flickering light turn off, and then back on. Lo and behold, none other than a cowboy shows up, complete with a hat and a “howdy.” The scene sounds like a set-up for a funny scene, but it ultimately becomes one of the scariest and most memorable scenes in the film. First of all, the look of the cowboy is slightly odd. His skin is pale, and he has no eyebrows. His talk is intellectual, really testing Adam with his dialogue. He appears to be someone who can really hurt him, both mentally and physically. We are afraid for Adam, as he clearly seems to be swept up in a giant problem he isn’t going to be able to get of. The dialogue continues against various close-ups and a slightly off-kilter ambient noise that makes itself present throughout the whole scene. One almost wants to take a shower after watching this scene; it’s so intimate and uncomfortable that it’s hard to watch by the end. When the cowboy makes his demands at the end of the scene, it is clear that Adam is going to agree to his demands. The cowboy says, “You will see me one more time if you do good. You will see me two more times if you do bad.” That kind of line delivery from someone as creepy as this guy would make anyone do good and go against doing bad. The scene ends with an abrupt fade to black, and it looks as if Adam is going to go through with agreeing to the man’s demands. The scene is subtle, and not full of anything that resembles generic horror, but it represents a scene from a horror film because it probes at our deepest, darkest fears, such as being mentally investigated by a pale scary man in the middle of nowhere.

 The magic of Betty and Rita’s bonding is that everything starts out innocent at first. They both work together to try to figure out who Rita is, and where she comes from. As they start to make headway in their investigation, they begin to dig deeper into the giant mystery, and it seems to be the further they go, the more they find their ways into trouble. What started as sort of a game, particularly for Betty, becomes much more dangerous, almost in an intoxicating way. Take, for example, the sequence in which Betty and Rita go to the apartment complex and try to locate Diane Selwyn. They locate the address and go up to the door to knock. A woman answers the door and tells both of them to go to an adjacent apartment. Even before they get to the apartment, there is a sense that something is wrong. The cinematography is smooth and gliding with steadicam, showing us every swish and pan, every movement that leads the two women to the apartment. Lynch once again sets up the agonizing suspense by giving the audience these long takes where a mysterious figure could pop up at every turn. That eerie ambient sound returns as they make their way into the apartment, and the lighting accentuates the intensity of the scene. The atmosphere is especially creepy, with more long roaming POV shots that leads us to the unthinkable. We go inside a room to see a decomposing dead body, rotting away in a perturbed state of mind. What happened to this dead woman? Did she kill herself? Did Rita kill her before she got amnesia? The scene creates so many questions that it is easy to approach the scene in an intellectual manner, but on an emotional level, it hits the viewer assuredly. There aren’t any easy answers with the scene, but it definitely hits the peak of horror with its unabashed suspense.

A different kind of take on the horror genre occurs in a long and truly strange sequence inside a theatre late at night. Rita and Betty enter the theatre late at night, and the startling cinematography already shows us that something isn’t going to be quite right. Lynch begins a shot hundreds of yards in the distance, with the two of them being barely a speck on the upper part of the screen. Then the camera rushes toward the two like a rabid dog about to pounce, all the way up to them, and the door being slammed. Then the mood turns more gothic horror, in some ways a drawback to horror of the 1950’s. Essentially, William Castle would approve of the following scene. A pale woman with bright blue hair sits alone above the theatre. Betty starts to shake for unknown reasons. A merciless man disappears on stage. A blinding blue light hits the audience. A woman sings at the top of her lungs, baring herself emotionally. This sequence is so downright bizarre that it reaches a level of horror on not really a scary level but an emotionally charged level. By the end of this long turn of events, we as audience members almost want to let out our own emotions as Betty and Rita cry in the audience. They feel the power of the singing and the song, and we feel like an emotional catharsis is earned just after putting up with all the complexities of the film. This theatre that Betty and Rita find their way into is filled with dark secrets, quiet and mysterious, unexplainable and inexplicable. There is a sense that many people die in this place, only to keep on living, to live in a strange purgatory of happiness and sadness.

Finally, the last sequence to take a look at takes place at the end of the film. When Betty wakes up from the dream as her real self Diane, the nightmare begins in her life, and the reality sets in. There are many interpretations to be made of the last half-hour of this puzzle of a movie, but the most logical explanation is that the first two hours of the movie is a dream in Diane’s head and that the last half-hour is the real truth. She is an actress down on her luck, forced to watch the beautiful Camilla get the lead in Adam’s movie and even fall in love with him. Diane’s Hollywood dream has been squashed and ruined, and she slowly starts to unravel, first losing her love Camilla, and then losing any chance she has at a strong film career in the business. After feeling hurt and humiliated, she even hires a man to kill Camilla, because she can’t take the fact that Camilla has rose to the top and not her. This last half-hour works as the most realistic part of the movie. Before this part, Betty lived in a dreamland, filled with naïve hope and possibility, and now the truth has set in. As Diane sits in her apartment, looking at the mysterious blue key that signals the loss of Camilla, she looks as if she is lost, like nothing will ever go her way. This scene settles into the most horrifying and disturbing scene of the film. It’s sad, bizarre, grotesque, and, frankly, rather scary. The two elderly people who delivered Betty into Los Angeles rush up to Diane and scream in her face, as Diane screams back, completely at a loss for words. The cinematography here is handheld and in your face, absolutely rendering the horror of the situation. The sound is also loud and menacing, pushing the boundaries of what ambient sound can do for a scene that is meant to horrify. The editing is terrific, going back and forth between the two elderly people and back to Diane, faster and faster. The scene reaches its pinnacle when Diane grabs the gun and shoots herself in the face. The scene quiets down, a rush of smoke fills the air, and the quiet, haunting music begins to fade in. This scene is terrifying unlike anything else in the film, because the action represents the harsh reality of Diane’s downfall. She experiences in a heightened way in this scene surely what hundreds and hundreds of aspiring actors and actresses have experienced upon coming to Los Angeles and failing to achieve the Hollywood dream. For every Julia Roberts, there are hundreds of people looking to make it in the business that fall through the cracks. Some are apparently not pretty enough, not tall enough, not smart enough, and not thin enough. The dream itself becomes more of what these people want than the actual reality of living the dream—as long as the hope stays alive, they will continue on with smiles and well wishes. Diane hired a man to kill the person she loved, and she corrupted her body and mind to achieve an almost unachievable dream. Mulholland Drive is a horror film because it allows the dream to take precedent over any sort of reality, and in the end, the reality becomes front-and-center to showcase a woman’s harsh and maddening destruction in a terrifying way. When the dream is dead, the person might as well be dead, too.

In looking at the title, synopsis, characters, and various scenes and sequences in the film, it can be seen that, despite all of the other genres present in the film, Mulholland Drive is a horror film. It’s scary not in an obvious slasher movie kind of way; it’s scary because it cuts straight through any intellectual material and goes straight for the viewer’s emotion. The conclusion of Diane’s madness could have been dealt with in many ways in other directors. In fact, in the hands of a more literal kind of dramatic director, the film could have worked as more of a straight interpretation of what it’s like to fail the Hollywood dream. In David Lynch’s hands, however, he casts his message to the viewer in such an unlikely and non-obtrusive way that it may be hard to see exactly the kind of effect he is going before, because we are letting the movie simply happen to us. Lynch is an absolute master, and Mulholland Drive is one of his most memorable and haunting motion pictures. It’s the thinking person’s horror film.