Eraserhead

In film school it is not cool to say you like David Lynch. Film students claim he is just a poor mans version of Luis Bunuel. Yes, I would say that Bunuel is more talented and is the king of surrealism. But Lynch is very good and his films do challenge the viewer. I actually have a deep affection for his films. When his films work, they really work! However, when they do not work, for example, Twin Peaks, Fire, Walk with Me or Lost Highway then they quickly launch themselves into self parody. Many people claim his material is too inconsistent and indulgent to be really liked very much.

What I find strange is that one reviewer here states that he feel duped by Lynch. Duped? Why? The films all have a story. They just have a narrative that works differently to conventional film making. If you look hard at the film and try to understand the subtext then you will pick up on what the film is about.

I saw this when I was 16. I knew nothing about films or film making then. A friend and I were bored so we decided to see a movie at capitol cinema. Capitol cinema used to be a cinema that played arty or small independent films. They used to play midnight showings of eraserhead. There was always someone smoking a joint in that place. However, you don't need drugs for this film. Lynch is drugs. This film just buzzes you out.

I had no idea what Eraserhead was about. I had never heard of Lynch and knew nothing about surrealism. I went in and was just totally blown away! Before this I had only really seen commercial blockbuster movies. Lynch gave me a whole knew perspective on what cinema is capable of. Eraserhead is the stuff of dreams. Lynch believes that watching a film is entering a dream state. Both my friend and I did not know what the hell was going on. I was fascinated...

Later I would learn this is a film about Lynch's own obsessions. His hatred of Philadelphia. His fear and anxiety at being a father. The film is just full of a kind of a compulsive, paranoid neurosis. It is a waking nightmare. He also seems to parody the nuclear family. 'Did you have sexual intercourse with my daughter?' Meanwhile that weird blond woman in his radiator seems to represent his escape. A way to transcend from his grim world. What I also find bizarre is that people then accuse him of having no sense of humor! What? There are always funny moments in his films. 'Did you have sexual intercourse with my daughter?'

Jack Nance is also very good as the main character. He seems to be playing the director and he gives a performance that is distant, spaced out and yet emotionally vulnerable. A really strange mix. The imagery is just brilliant. Black and white in an industrial wasteland. There is smoke here of course. It wouid not be a Lynch film without smoke! It also has a cool, grating industrial soundtrack that sets your nerves on edge. This is perfectly effective for the bleak tone of the film. It is so visually striking that the viewer will not forget the imagery quickly. There is a reason that this is a cult film. The other distinctive feature of this film is the long lingering shots. This reminds me of Jim Jarmusch and his movies like Dead Man and Ghost Dog. The length of the shots seems to have the effect of immersing the viewer in this strange industrial wasteland.

I have my own copy that I lend to friends. They then normally give it back to me saying that they only got through the first half hour. They also normally tell me that I am a weirdo for liking it. I think what frustrates people most about Lynch is that he will not give any explanations of what the film is about. So any interpretation is as good as any other. People want the film to be explained so they can understand it. Who said films must be understood or comprehensible? Why can't a film be abstract piece of art like a painting? Lynch's films are like an acid trip. To quote the great gonzo, Hunter S Thompson, 'buy the ticket, take the ride and if it gets a little heavier than what you had in mind, then put it down to forced consciousness expansion.'

So in other words, relax, stick it on and just run with it. Travel into someone else's nightmare for a change...

I can think of very few films that have sound as their most commendable feature. The Exorcist is one, a film that, aside from infrequent strains of `Tubular Bells', adopts minimal incidental music. This is laudable in a horror genre where shocks are clearly signposted – and predicted – by overgenerous musical stings. The Exorcist may be flawed, but its avoidance of this field cliché is worthy of praise.

Eraserhead is the other film that excels in sound. A frankly disturbing concoction of industrial score and white noise with undercurrents of musical hall and sonorous church organ, it is almost an extra character in the film, and easily it's most prominent factor.

Yet Eraserhead is to be recommended for more than its incidentals. An impenetrable and gloomy work, what is it actually about? Who is the credited `man in the planet' who pulls levers that control giant spermatozoa? Many questions like this permeate a film which perhaps has to be seen several times to get over the initial shock of it's avant gardism. Lynch extracts the everyday and supplants it with the exceptionally bizarre. The experience of meeting a girlfriend's parents for the first time is never worse than here, where the parents in question gyrate spasmodically to the animated legs of a blood-spitting chicken. It's these scenes – along with the deformed mutant baby – that could lend the film the air of an abortion debate. Birth and repressed sexuality thrive throughout the film, from suckling puppies to the seductive appeal of the `beautiful girl across the hall' and a mother-in-law that gets too close for comfort. I guess the entire film could be a man's mental breakdown when faced with the premature responsibilities of marriage and fatherhood. Though to be honest I couldn't even begin to imagine what it's really all about.

Encroaching blackness fills every scene, where lights are intermittent at best, and at worse fail completely. Often sets – particularly the bedroom when `Mary X' is feeding the child – are like prison cells. Two of the most eerie segments involve a title-explaining dream (?) where Henry's (Nance's) head is carved into pencil rubbers and an unsettling musical number from the `lady in the radiator'. This is the same lady with two candyfloss-like lumps on her cheeks that alternates her stage appearances between stamping on giant sperm to singing with religious convictions.

Direction and cinematography are brilliant throughout, though the climax is the ultimate extension of a film that borders on darker, extremely unpleasant aspects of reality. I took a girl to see this film once, where the conclusion formed the final straw in what could be seen as a cycle of repellent imagery. I wonder why I never saw her again?

I'm always a bit worried when I'm about to express my love towards this movie by the genius director David Lynch... I figure it's the perfect indicator for psychiatrists to claim that you're completely nuts :)

But what the heck, they're a lot of nutballs on this website, so I can speak my mind freely. Indeed, I love this movie...although 'love' may be a wrong term to describe my feelings towards it. This movie 'fascinates' me is a much better saying. Usually, a movie is something in which you can live yourself in...in order to escape the stress of real life. Eraserhead is the exact opposite of that ! When watching this film, you can only hope that you'll never awake in the wold like Lynch shows it here. The horrible noises, the colorless and tasteless locations and the insensible characters...you all hate to love it. Eraserhead takes a walk with your emotions, you don't know whether to be disgusted or intrigued by it. So you'll feel uncomfortable when watching it and that's a wonderful experience for a cinema freak !

Eraserhead is the ultimate cult film in my opinion and a must see for every fan of this delicious genre. In fact, I would go so far to say you can't call yourself a cult-freak if you haven't seen it yet.

David Lynch begins his highly impressive career with this one and it still lives on. Eraserhead isn't his best film at all ( certainly not when it comes to storyline ) but it's his most deep and personal tale. 25 years old and still the "weirdest" film ever. That's an achievement, certainly with all this artistic filmmakers lately...or, at least, they try to be...)

I want to encourage as much people as possible to see this one, but it's for the best that some groups of people avoid it. Surely not recommended if you're depressed or suicidal...The image of Jack Nance and the rest of the cast could even put you more down, I think. The tagline of this movie - "In heaven, everything looks fine" - could become a stimulus, I'm afraid. Pregnant women and young couples in love should beware as well !! This film is the ultimate nightmare for that what should be the greatest miracle of life...The hideous but yet harmless "baby" ( I really don't know how I should call it, actually )is the purest form of horror that ever occurred on the screen.

You must have respect for director David Lynch. If you imagine how hard it must have been to create and finance this production. But it worked...hell, even comedy legend Mel Brooks was deeply impressed. Based on this film, he decided to let Lynch direct "The Elephant Man" a few years later. By that, David's career was launched and of course he made a masterpiece out of it. For me personally, his highlights were the 80's with terrific movies like "Blue Velvet", "Dune" ( very underrated, in my opinion) and "Wild at Heart" at the end of the decade. And let's not forget the best TV-series ever made: "Twin Peaks".

Please, watch this movie !! Three times in a row if possible. I know a lot of people who just stopped watching it after half and hour ( or less ) and yelled "What the f*** is this ???". Real shame, if you ask me. It's an insight to a great mind and a unique event. If you really don't see the magic of it, at least try to admire the very stylish haircut of the main character. I'm thinking of doing the same thing with mine...

A surprising number of reviewers here howl at length about how bored they were by this movie. No surprise. I doubt David Lynch intended to entertain the viewer of Eraserhead. He intended to invoke a response, to be sure, but amusement was not it. There is not a single word nor phrase I can use to convey the response this movie brought out in me. Fascinated depression, appalled sympathy, and an ever present feeling of gratitude that although I was present in this bleak, inhuman, industrial, possibly toxic world, it was just a dream and I would be away from it eventually, unlike Henry Nance.

The events draw you along in morbid curiosity as Henry goes about his business, fate not being very kind to him at any particular point. The pacing is slow enough that one has time to muse on the meaning of what transpires while the dank grim surroundings press down on oneself as they do on Henry.

Should be watched in the evening with darkened lights. It is a trip, if you are willing to take it.

Those who are bored should not watch it. They should rent 'Rambo', or perhaps 'Smokey and the Bandit'.

What fascinated me throughout the entire movie was how David Lynch built a world that looks like it could be familiar to the audience, but feels like something entirely alien.

This is not my first David Lynch movie, as I watched The Elephant Man some years back, but I remember it being nothing like this in terms of its weirdness.

Definitely looking forward to getting to know more of Lynch's work!