Eraserhead
1977 Directed by David Lynch
Synopsis
Where your nightmares end...
Henry Spencer tries to survive his industrial environment, his angry girlfriend, and the unbearable screams of his newly born mutant child.
Cast
Studio
Popular reviews
More-
Assigning a star rating to this movie would be like grading a Salvador Dali piece with a star rating. It's utterly absurd and simplifies the work to the point of insult. Eraserhead has more in common with a Dali painting than another film at your multiplex, it's a piece of art, not entertainment. I would be more comfortable sitting and watching this in a gallery than a theatre with twelve-dollar popcorn combos.
People constantly wonder what this or that means, but what does it matter? Only the naive ask what a Pollock or Rothko painting is supposed to mean. The important thing is what the piece does to you. How do you respond? Lynch's later works are more like movies…
-
But having rated it five stars, I'm not sure if I ever want to do this to myself again. It was my first time in the theater, and I forgot that on my previous viewing at home I paused a couple times (toilet break, water). In the theater, there is no escape, and I seriously contemplated fleeing a couple times, just because I found the film so effectively anxiety-inducing.
ERASERHEAD is a miracle of sound design, of no-budget imagination, of the potency of tapping into mundane anxieties with the absurd and grotesque. When I first saw it, I think I grooved on its surface qualities and its CRAZI-ness; I certainly didn't tap into it as deeply emotionally, whereas here I…
-
"What is this?" is a question that popped into my mind several times throughout. It's crazy how little amount of time I wasn't shocked while watching this. What I suppose to be imagery or metaphors just seemed to go over my head. I did get some of it and what I didn't get I enjoyed just as much. Based on Lynch's fear of having children, a young man named Henry is thrown into chaos when he hears that his "girlfriend" has had a child.
It attacks your senses from the moment it appears on screen, the noisy background never lets up. This creates a very eerie and unsettling atmosphere, sometimes the noises used just pierced into my skull. I was…
-
David Lynch's romantic comedy about the perils of fatherhood and how hard seducing women becomes with a screaming baby. Starring the unfortunate Henry, the only man on a constant 5 second delay.
-
-
I lost count of how many times I said "ewwww" and "gross" and all of the other ways I vocalized my disgust. Eraserhead is not a comfortable watch by any stretch of the imagination, but the creativity and weird energy underpinning every scene was infectious enough to keep me engaged. I know I sound like a broken record but I really hate the vast majority of horror films no matter how good they are. Instead of scaring me, this one just grossed me out. It also evoked feelings of anxiety, repulsion, and confusion with mesmerizing visuals and a terrifying score. I couldn't stop watching no matter how much i wanted to.
So.... yeah. Well done, Lynch. Don't confuse my admiration for enjoyment, though. I didn't like it at all. Not even a little.
Recent reviews
More-
One of my all time favorite films. It's like the obscure nature of a nightmare captured on film. It struck a nerve in me. It completely changed the way I looked at film. Seeing it in my late teens, it was really the first film where I remember realizing what cinematography truly was and the impact it could have on a film. I remember being in awe at some of the shots Lynch managed to capture and coming to the realization that you could pause it at nearly any point and have this beautiful photograph frozen on the screen. His lighting and set design blew me away, even back then, and it still does. I couldn't track down his filmography…
-
Fantastic film. More proof that you don't need traditional/conventional film-making methods (story/character development, plot, etc) to make a good film. All you need is to be effective and this is what this film is. Through it's vivid imagery, soundtrack, amazing camera shots creates a nauseating feeling and so it should; the film is essentially a nightmare. A great directorial debut and it's very distinctly a Lynch film.
-
"David Lynch is more than simply a Producer, Writer and Director. He is an Artist." True words. The movie didn't make any sense whatsoever on the first viewing. Well, it's a strange movie after all. But, it did become a lot clearer after giving it a second watch. In particular, I found this website quite useful in understanding some parts of the movie - www.thecityofabsurdity.com/papers/wolfe.html
-
Last saw this more than 25 years ago, long before I had kids, so there was no way for it to register on quite the same level of abject terror in the face of parenthood. I certainly don't remember the scene in which Henry, attempting to leave his room (and leave the sick baby-thing alone), realizes from the escalating cries that his presence actually brings it some comfort; it's a gut-punch I simply wasn't expecting. The even-more-surreal stuff still leaves me a bit more befuddled than intrigued--still couldn't offer a defensible theory about what the eraserhead dream means--but there's still that amazingly immersive sound design, and imagery that's potent even when it's opaque. Most of all, though, there's something primal in Lynch conveying that this alien being takes over your life in a way that's completely terrifying.
-
David Lynch doesn't have children does he?
-
I don't think I can review or rate this, it was so surreal and strange and I can't compare it to any other film I've seen. I nearly threw up watching a scene as well.
-
not sure what the fuck i just watched... i dont know maybe i missed the point. this was weird.
-
Well this was some pretty fucked up shit ಠ_ಠ. Sadly, it never really managed to capture me, it left me a bit cold.
-
This black comic nightmare of parental anxiety/body horror flick/avant-garde surrealist provocation is a miracle of sustained mood. It is a punishing, perplexing experience in the the home theater setting. But it has a career's worth of indelible images and proves that Lynch's creative visions emerged fully formed right from the outset. A must see, but I'm not sure I'll ever be able to return to it.