Horror-101

‘Eraserhead’ Still Disturbs After All These Years

Unsettling cult classic displays the possibilities of surreal horror

written and directed by David Lynch

Horror is more than just the generic, the cliched, and the re-threaded. It amazes me how so many young filmmakers continue to limp over the same old ground, showing us another vampire, werewolf, or zombie, and failing miserably at scaring us. Current video store shelves are littered with these countless attempts. No one thinks outside the box anymore. Hardly anyone seems capable of putting a new spin to old monsters or new faces to our deepest fears. Very few novel filmmakers see the possibilities of exploring fears in fascinating, new visual ways. And in light (or the dark) of it, David Lynch’s first film, the 1977 cult classic, Eraserhead, still stands as one of the most influential surreal horror films made.  It manages to still be perplexing and disturbingly well-crafted after all these years.

The enigmatic opening shot

(This review is of a revival theatrical screening which took place in Baltimore, MD at The Charles theater in November of 2007. After many years of being an out-of-print film on VHS, Eraserhead was released on DVD last year and is now widely available.)

There are many interpretations of this film, and in there lies its strength, but let’s detail its objective plot: Henry (the departed Jack Nance), a young man living in a dark, oppressive, industrial city, gets a call from his estranged girlfriend, Mary X (Charlotte Stewart). At her folks, in a beyond-bizarre dinner, her parents inform Henry he must marry Mary, as she’s given birth to his child. This is news to Henry, since they haven’t had sex (or have they? The movie’s ambiguous about this). The couple move into Henry’s small apartment and bring the monstrosity they call their ‘baby’ home to raise. The ‘baby’ is a hideous fetus-faced creature which cries incessantly, has no extremities, and its body is a bulbous shape covered in bandages. Mary leaves, driven away by the infant’s never-ending wailing, and Henry’s left alone to tend to the young monster. Meanwhile, he’s eventually seduced by the beautiful woman from across the hall (Judith Anna Roberts). He’s also having visions of a puffy-faced woman who lives in his radiator (Laurel Near).

A good argument for abortion

Shot in black and white during the ’70’s, Eraserhead took seven years to complete. The film is a case study as to just how determined one must be to achieve their vision. The filmmakers ran out of money several times, and the sets had to be taken down and re-assembled several times in order to complete the shoot. Lynch’s drawn-out effort paid off, however, as Eraserhead went on to become a very successful midnight movie, giving him a reputation as auteur and opened many doors (including Mel Brooks discovering him and assigning him to direct The Elephant Man). The film just doesn’t garner a place in film history for being weird; it’s also a carefully crafted film, composed of enigmatic, gorgeously photographed black and white images: we’re taken back to an ominous, unnamed ‘planetoid’ again and again; a hideously disfigured machine operator seems to be behind the torments of Henry; the baby is but one of many horrific fetus creatures being born into the nightmare landscape; we go into broken pipes, which lead to desolate, moon-like landscapes; grass seems to inexplicably grow everywhere in Henry’s apartment, spreading from his radiator; a minuscule but hopeful bean grows inside a cupboard in the apartment, dancing and taking flight in the night; Henry and the woman across the hall make love, melting into a pool of ecstasy on Henry’s bed. For a film that’s plainly known for being weird, there’s a captivating, purposeful cinematic approach to its madness.

The shadowy machine operator unleashes a nightmare

It can be argued that David Lynch is a horror filmmaker. He’s mastered metaphysical horror. His films, shunned by mainsteam audiences for being seemingly illogical, tap into sub-conscious fears, deeply hidden dreads lurking in our psyches. In Blue Velvet, the terrible things which are always occurring in suburbia were revealed by a severed ear covered by ants in the opening sequence. Twin Peaks, his television series, created a vast mystery behind the murder of a seemingly innocent homecoming queen, a case in which investigation revealed the dark secrets of a pacific northwestern town. And in Eraserhead, there’s plenty of fears touched up: fear of parenting, fear of women, fear of being trapped by caring for something that’s helpless, fear of an overwhelming, industrialized society. It’s a horror film just the same as those overrun by zombies or plagued by vampires; it’s just not an obvious one.

This is even a film with a monster, perhaps the most unlikely monster ever. The malformed baby that keeps Henry trapped in his apartment with its constant needing ultimately reveals itself as a terrifying force. Driven to near insanity by its cries (eventually the baby laughs mockingly at him), Henry reaches for a pair scissors and attempts to see what’s under the bandages on the baby’s body… except there’s nothing underneath; the bandages are part of the thing’s body. Effectively, Henry disembowels the tiny monster, uncovering its gruesome organs. Perhaps in knee-jerk response to the horrid screams given by the dying creature, Henry stabs its heart. As it dies, a giant manifestation of the baby appears in the room, hollering abominably. It’s a powerful, climactic, moody, dreadful scene like a nightmare you want to wake up from.

The lady in the radiator sings to save Henry from his tormentors

Eraserhead has proven to be influential through the decades, inspiring new generations of daring filmmakers (Tetsuo: The Iron Hammer, for example, can be directly traced back to Lynch’s work). As impenetrable as the film might seen — to direct interpretation, anyway — the film’s nightmarish, painstakingly-crafted, surreal imagery is a testament to the audio-visual possibilities of horror cinema, and of all cinema. Hollywood may continue to regurgitate the mainstream, generic images of horror cinema, and many filmmakers may re-thread those, but Lynch’s daring work will continue to inspire a select few to think outside the box and create wildly original film experiences.

Horror-101 gives Eraserhead an 89 out of 101

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