Okay, here's the deal. When I was a kid, our family would go to the county fair. Carver Point's local fair got outlawed back in the mid-50's due to an incident involving a rabid giraffe and the church organist, so we were forced to travel about thirty-five miles over to nearby Crosskot County for their fair. It was alright by me, 'cause the Crosskot County Fair was world-famous all over the land. The livestock exhibit was huge. The rides were fabulous. The snacks were overcooked, oily, and everything you'd ever want in carnival food.

And, oh, there was a freak show. Clyde Bouillabank's House of Oddities, it was called. Ol' Clyde would be out front, sporting his lime green vest and pink turtleneck, talking his talk. He'd run his spiel, referencing the canvas paintings of the Hiram the Human Squid and Tripod the Three-Legged Man. After years of begging, finally, when I was 11, my daddy said I was mature enough to go inside and see Clyde's roustabouts for myself.

I was strangely attracted to it all. (Guys, it's kinda like, when you seem to slow down as you flip through the bra-and-panty section of the JC Penny catalog. Something inside you tells you not to stop and gawk, but you just can't help yourself.) I wandered through that tent, staying as close to the velvet rope as I could get. I walked from partition to partition, amazed by what I had seen, and unable to imagine what could possibly be waiting next.

I went back every year after that. I had to. There was something or someone new every time, something to make it just a little bit different. And I would be more amazed with each outing.

Nowadays, the political correctness idiots have managed to keep Clyde out of the loop when the fair comes to town. Objectionable for the children, they say. Degrading to the elders. Not fit for human consumption. (Last I heard, ol' Clyde had reinvented himself as a pharmacist's assistant at a psych hospital outside Augusta.)

So, now, all I'm left with is the occasional David Lynch movie.

And, my dear patients, if Lynch is your cup of tea, his new movie, Lost Highway is another ramble through Clyde's tent.

Freakherd David casts Bill Pullman, whitebread savior of the planet in ID4, as a jazz sax player named Fred Madison. Fred gets messages about people dying, people he has never known. His wife, played by Patricia Arquette, has given him reason to believe his marriage is in trouble. And he starts getting videos that have been taken inside his house while he's asleep in the very same house. From there, it only gets mo' weirder.

We're thrown a funky subplot about a grease monkey (Balthazar Getty) and a blonde hussy (also Patricia Arquette). The hussy leads the mechanic down a path of crime, observed by her "mentor" Mr. Eddy, stylishly performed by Robert Loggia.

These are genuine Lynch-mob tactics here. The first third of this movie is every bit as claustrophobic and unnerving as Eraserhead. Lynch has always been a director that preferred to leave things open rather than go for the typical Hollywood closure. He'd rather have us answer our own questions, whether or not we have enough information to figure them out. Personally, I love that about Lynch, but, if you're not ready for a long night of "What the wee-doggy was that?", it can drive you stone cold looney after a while. I mean, hell, it was a good three years before I surfaced from Blue Velvet, and I still have nagging questions about that "Twin Peaks" thing.

As usual, you also get the typical Lynch cast of irregulars. This time, he pulls Robert Blake from the pit of Used-To-Be and casts him as the "Mystery Man," sort of a freaky Lugosi-looking Greek chorus, who appears and disappears almost at will and pushes the story deeper into the Whatzat Zone. Baretta has shaved his eyebrows, greased his hair back, and bleached himself whiter than his Cockatoo, Fred. He is absolutely one of Lynch's creepiest characters, blending equal parts of Dennis Hopper in Blue Velvet and that backwards talking dwarf in "Peaks."

What a collective we have hear. It's like Lynch is the captain of some warped playground pick-up game, and he picks all the kids that usually sit on the curb and watch, leaving the typical top picks to sulk all alone. After signing up Blake, Loggia and Getty, Lynch called out Mr. Ed-as-Human Gary Busey, Eraserhead his own self Jack Nance, muscle-punk music legend Henry Rollins and, believe it or not, Richard Pryor (!) as a garage owner. There's also a host of other oddities passing in and out of frame.

This is in no way a particularly easy film to watch, and, like most of Lynch's work, it will be debated in critic circles, film schools, and by film fans for a long time. Credit stands with the director, of course, as well as longtime Lynch music man Angelo Badalamenti for one of his spookiest scores yet. I do, though, want to give a special mention to the camera work of Peter Deming. Deming finds the darkest recesses of the California night, and pulls the characters into the abyss created by that lack of light. He is at his disturbing penultimate when his subjects suddenly go out of focus. It's as if the film has abandoned it's tenuous grip on reality and released itself into the breathy clouds of tomorrow. (Yow! For a paragraph there, I was channeling Pauline Kael!)

All debating aside, one thing is for sure, though. This film is a feast for starving Lynch fans. It's a return to the dark side of Lynch, the non-linear, Bizarro World storyteller. Thankfully, he is still brave enough to show viewers the story as it's told inside his head. He doesn't Formula 409 the plot for the sake of the audience; he just lets the camera see through his off-kilter eyes. If you're new to the world, you'll have one of two reactions. You'll either: A) hate it; or, B) be mesmerized by it. Or maybe, both.

But, remember this. If you took a survey, I bet most Lynch fans will admit that they hated their first viewing of their first Lynch film. And we all can't be wrong, now, can we?

See the equally weird and wonderful Lost Highway website.