Eraserhead [M]

Henry, whilst over at his girlfriend’s parents’ house for dinner, discovers that he is the father of a premature baby still at the hospital. Shortly after bringing it home, Henry’s girlfriend, Mary comes to live with him and the malformed child, but soon leaves when its constant crying keeps her awake. Strange nightmares about decapitation and pencil erasers mixed with fantasies about a woman in his radiator soon begin to plague him to the point of insanity. 

That little blurb up top seems pretty coherent considering that I could not make heads or tails of this movie and it had to be one of the weirdest, if not the most bizarre movie that I have ever seen. Filmed in black and white with minimal dialogue and spasmodically edited, the horror of Eraserhead is not so much in the story or even the sometimes gross special effects, but more in its out-of-this-universe eccentricity and bizarreness. How anyone could withstand the blast of its strangeness, let alone write and direct it is absolutely beyond me. 

Henry, whilst over at his girlfriend’s parents’ house for dinner, discovers that he is the father of a premature baby still at the hospital. Shortly after bringing it home, Henry’s girlfriend, Mary comes to live with him and the malformed child, but soon leaves when its constant crying keeps her awake. Strange nightmares about decapitation and pencil erasers mixed with fantasies about a woman in his radiator soon begin to plague him to the point of insanity. 

Eraserhead is the result of five years of spasmodic filming and postproduction editing. Its setting of some kind of urban wasteland, mingled with its jagged editing and quick scene cuts and copies gives it that surreal and strangely appealing amateurish vibe that comes with watching other strange epics such as Fritz Lang’s Metropolis. In any case, this movie is definitely a visual one as the dialogue is kept to a minimum and long and uncomfortable silences dominate the duration. The horror is ascertained by the strange special effects and sight gags that come into play: things such as the roasted chicken that haemorrhages blood and moves its legs when about to be carved and, of course, the malformed and later diseased baby. 

What Lynch tries to convey to the audience is completely unclear to me, it could be political, subconscious, futuristic, or even a subtle smack at the institution of marriage. If you can sit through the whole thing, spin it whichever way you want because, aside from getting Lynch on the phone and having him explain it to you, I don’t think there’s much else you can do. 

Starring Jack Nance, Charlotte Stewart, Judith Anna Roberts, Jeanne Bates, and Allen Joseph, Eraserhead is a bizarre film that’s filled with oddity, gore, horror, and even-increasing levels of strangeness. If you’ve got a tendency for the very weird, give it a go; me myself, I don’t think I could watch it again.