David Lynch’s Eraserhead is a mindtrip through an industrial world of madness and despair, in which the main character Henry Spencer lives. Henry seems to walk through life in a stupor, not really connecting with anything, and experiencing anxiety from all around him. And it’s no wonder, considering he got his girlfriend Mary pregnant and she had a premature birth to a weird creature that has no limbs except for a sheep-like head that bleets throughout the night. The film is saturated with layers of meaning throughout the scenes, though Lynch refuses to comment on the real meaning behind the film. The film itself is extremely puzzling, and Lynch himself has said that no one has come close to explaining the meaning behind the film. And yet it stands out as one of the greatest and weirdest independent films to become a cult hit.

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David Lynch

Trying to describe David Lynch represents no small challenge. He likes to take us to the edge of reality and peer into the darkness of the unknown. Looking in, we see where his best films comfortably reside. Nestled in the thorny twisted branches of psychosis and desire we find such films as Eraserhead, Blue Velvet, Mulholland Dr., and Inland Empire, among others.

Each of these films is totally unique (both from each other and all of cinema), yet they share a common fascination with the complex, and often troubling, roots of human psychology. Born in 1946, Lynch feels comfortable exploring these disturbing aspects of humanity when most filmmakers (or people in general) would rather not approach them so directly.

In Eraserhead we explore the life of Henry Spencer whose post-apocalyptic world gets turned upside down when he learns that his girlfriend is pregnant. The child she gives birth to turns out to be a bizarre mutant creature that constantly screams. Shooting the film over a nearly five year span, Lynch uses stunning black and white cinematography to capture this strange world filled with disturbing sexual imagery and hauntingly barren sound design. (more…)