(This review contains no spoilers. Content warning for descriptions of body horror.)
The experience of watching Eraserhead is a struggle to describe with words. Created in 1977 as filmmaker David Lynch’s first feature-length picture, the indie film is a surrealist cult classic that places you in an unsettling and alien alternate reality. With a budget of just $100,000, it produces intensely frightening, gruesome visuals aided by both its artistic choices and sheer technical skill. No matter what you take away from its loose plot, dreamlike visuals, and heavily metaphorical storytelling, Eraserhead is an experience that you will never forget.
Eraserhead is about a man named Henry Spencer (Jack Nance) who learns that his fling with a woman named Mary X (Charlotte Stewart) has resulted in her having a baby. He marries her and has her move in with him so they can properly care for the child. He finds that his baby is severely disabled, sharing nothing in appearance with an average newborn, with the implication that it may not actually be human. As the baby’s nonstop crying drives Mary to near madness, she goes back home and leaves Henry to care for the baby by himself.
This is all that is concrete about the film’s story. Beyond this, the plot is loose, ethereal, and highly up to interpretation. As Henry cares for his baby, he experiences sudden dreamlike hallucinations and experiences that are nearly inseparable from the film’s “reality”. Characters speak and act strangely and inexplicably with no acknowledgment. Henry’s apartment is run-down and filled with out-of-place objects; moss covers the entire room and an uncovered pot of water sits in his drawer. All that we see of the world outside Henry and Mary’s homes appears to be a broken-down, gloomy industrial nightmare, suggesting their world may be apocalyptic or dystopian. No semblance of normalcy is present to fall back on for comfort; Henry himself reacts to most of the film’s events by staring blankly, leaving the reactions up to the audience. In this bizarreness, discomfort forms in the viewer from the distinct sense that everything familiar has become distorted.
Beyond the overall distressing tone of Eraserhead, most of its direct terror comes from body horror. Even with its astronomically low budget for a feature-length film, it manages to create incredibly disturbing and believable gore effects, created with artistic talent and aided by its visual choices: the film is visually very dark, often fuzzy, and is shot entirely in black-and-white. The body horror is alien, turning regular items into objects of fear. In one scene, Henry is over for dinner at Mary’s house with her parents, and as he attempts to cut into a chicken, it writhes wildly and gushes blood on its plate.
Lynch himself has never gone into detail about the intended meaning of Eraserhead. Many connections, however, can be drawn between the film and his personal life. Before the film’s conception, he spent five years with his family in a troubled, poverty-stricken neighborhood, much like the film’s depressing backdrop. His partner at the time, Peggy Reavey, got pregnant unexpectedly, and they married; Reavey described Lynch as “a reluctant father, but a very loving one”, mirroring Henry’s apprehension towards taking care of his child. Finally, Lynch’s daughter was born with severely clubbed feet that required substantial surgery to fix, leading people to draw connections between her and the child in Eraserhead’s physical disability. Lynch, however, has never confirmed or denied any intentional connection between the film and his real-life experiences.
Like many artistic, unconventional films, Eraserhead originally drew negative reactions from critics and audiences due to its sheer strangeness. However, with some persistence from the marketers and filmmakers, it gradually gained an appreciation and subsequent cult following for its undeniable level of artistry. In 2004, the Library of Congress preserved the film in its National Film Registry due to its significant importance to American culture.
Eraserhead means many different things to many different people. It is filled with intricate symbolism and ambiguity that leaves room for a vast array of different interpretations of the work. Alongside that, its sheer bizarreness makes it a fascinating and disturbing watch, allowing it to linger in your mind for days to come. Available to watch on Max, Amazon, Google Play, and Vudu, David Lynch’s cult classic is a must-watch for anyone interested in stepping out of their comfort zone to embrace the absurd.
