By Erik Luchsinger
Movies mean a lot of different things to a lot of people. To some they are entertainment, to others they are a hobby, and to still others, movies are art. David Lynch's Eraserhead takes a genuinely weird-as-fuck approach to everyone's favorite moving visual medium (pornography excluded, of course) to create a monster of a film that is barely recognizable as a "movie" in the context of movies today.
Eraserhead is about a man living in an industrial wasteland of a town on what seems to be some kind of abandoned moon, floating in space. He and his lover/epileptic lady friend have something of a shotgun wedding at the hands of aforementioned lady friend's parents and end up with a deformed "baby" that they try halfheartedly to raise. After long bouts of creepy music, intense hallucinations and dream sequences the movie goes out with a disgusting bang as the baby grows and becomes even more deformed. Cue some odd visuals involving a pencil factory and (thankfully) the movie is over.
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From my overview of the plot it may sound like I dislike this movie, but that's not quite right. It's not easy to describe my feelings towards Eraserhead because it's not a normal movie. Regular critiques like "the acting was good" and "I enjoyed the story" don't mean anything in the context of Eraserhead. I wouldn't go so far as to call it a "good" movie. It isn't enjoyable to watch unless you enjoy feeling uncomfortable, awkward, and like you're covered in some kind of industrial-grade machine grease and badly need to take a shower. There is very little dialogue and most of it doesn't really mean anything because there's no story. You don't feel attached to any of the characters. For these reasons, the movie can even be boring at times if you're not in the right mood for a proper mindfuck.
All that being said, Eraserhead accomplishes something few horror movies do, which is to make the viewer genuinely feel things. Watching this movie will scare you, it will make you feel dirty, nervous, anxious, nauseous, and probably a little like you're losing your mind. The music and soundscape is straight out of a nightmare, as is the nonsensical and disorienting way that the plot progresses. The visual texture is gritty. The awkward nature of the characters adds to the whole inhuman feeling of Eraserhead. You will walk away from this movie feeling like you just awoke from a terrible dream, the kind that makes you question who you are and what you're doing with your life.
Before I wrap this up, I want to address one of the ever-present questions regarding weird cult movies: should I watch it stoned/drunk/on acid/after licking too many toads? The answer in this case is HELL FUCKING NO. This isn't The Big Lebowski we're talking about here, this is some weird fucking shit. Eraserhead isn't funny or even remotely amusing. Getting high and watching it will more likely than not result in you standing in front of your bathroom mirror trying to pull all your hair out. Why? Because you will have actually gone insane. Just watch it sober and try to think happy thoughts. It wont totally mitigate the terror that Eraserhead will unleash upon you, but it might help a little. This warning goes doubly for psychedelics.
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Eraserhead is a trip of a movie. It's not like any other movie I've ever seen. No amount of jump scares and CGI will terrify you in the way that Eraserhead will. Sure, it's not a Halloween classic, at least in most circles, but it is genuinely scary. If you're looking to get spooked out this Halloween, I'd highly suggest adding Eraserhead to your gauntlet of terror. This is a 5/5 if you're in the market for a horror experience, but a 1.5/5 if you're looking for a movie that makes any kind of sense.
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