Review of Eraserhead (1977) by Robert D — 17 Apr 2011

I just finished this last night, and this is one of David Lych's top best pieces of work, as well as one of the greatest horror movies I've ever seen; right up there with Nosferatu(1922), Dracula(1931), Halloween(1978), Silence of the Lambs(1991), and The Shining(1980). One thing I've always loved about David Lynch is his ability to make his movies seem like surreal nightmares, that haunt and disturb us for weeks in our dreams because of some of the films bizzare and nightmarish visuals (The scenes with the mutant baby have to be hands down, the most disturbing scenes in movie history PERIOD!) This is by far his most cryptic movie, and I say that because David Lynch absolutley refuses to talk about the meaning of this film, and so far, nobody has even come close to his interpretation of the movie, so the hunt to unlock the meaning of Eraserhead is still on; for all we know, there may not even be a meaning, just random, bizzare visuals that make us think that there's more meaning than what's implied, but that could just be David Lynch playing around with us. The movie is very quiet, the most noises you hear in this movie are the mechanical noises in the background, and the mutant baby crying throughout a good portion of the film, and it really helps to drown the viewer in this futuristic post-apocalyptic industrial wasteland of a town, that Harry( our main character), walks through with sorrow, because it's an absolute mess, and things get messier when his ex-girlfriend calls, invites him to dinner, and tells him she's given birth to an extremley premature baby, Now this baby is freakin' ugly! Like I said, the scenes in the movie with the baby, are hands down the most disturbing scenes in cinema... PERIOD! The girfriend one night, gets so fed up with the baby's constant crying, so she leaves Harry to fend for himself, and as the movie progresses, Harry becomes increasingly insane, and fighting with himself wheter he should kill the baby. While that's going on, he's having strange visions of a kind, but deformed lady in his radiator, singing about how everything's fine in heavean. Another visions involves a sexual affair with his neighbor (only credited as The Beautiful Girl Across the Hall).

SPOILERS!!!!!! SPOILERS!!!!!!!!!!!!!

One of the most surreal and disturbing scenes in the movie happens when Harry has a nightmare with him in the radiator with the deformed lady singing, when he touches her, the stage she's on flashes a clear white light, she disappears, a dead tree rolls onto the stage, Harry is standing behind a railing, his head pops off, the head of the baby replaces the spot where his head used to be, the tree bleeds out all of this blood, the head falls through the blood, falls from the sky, a boy picks the head up, takes it to a pencil factory, and they find out that Harry's brain is suitable material for making erasers (hence the title of the movie, "Eraserhead).

Now that I'm done describing that little acid trip, back to why this movie is awesome. I can't forget the soundtrack, even though there isn't much for a soundtrack, except for when The Lady in the Radiator sings "Everything's Fine in Heaven", but it does an amazing job of immersing you into this tragic wasteland, and feel sorry for our main character, as he has to put up with this crap on a daily basis. There's not much else to say, except that this movie is amazing. It tells the tragic nightmares of a man who fears parenthood, along with a ambient industrial soundtrack, as well as enough bizzare visuals, and nightmarish images that David Lynch fans, whether old or new, can love. This movie works very well as a David Lynch movie, works well as a drama, works very well as a horror movie, and works well as a arthouse movie. This movie won't appeal to everybody, but for someone looking for something different, or if you're like me and see David Lynch's movies as more than just pretentious nonsense, you'll love this movie.