David Lynch’s infamous debut mind-scraper is the full embodiment of pure cinema, and, four decades later, has lost none of its primal power to shock and amaze.
A key player in the original midnight movie revolution of the 70s, and one of those rare films that truly deserves its cult status, ERASERHEAD is horrifyingly original: a nightmarish landscape where stunning B&W cinematography, groundbreaking industrial sound design and a singular hallucinatory vision — brimming with images of bodily assault and decay, sexual revulsion and unidentifiable mechanical constructions — all melt into a glorious subconscious abyss. Which is to say the film is completely badass, and a landmark jawdropper in the realm of the weird ‘n wild. A surprisingly thorough primer in the visual motifs that would come to dominate both Lynch’s later film and television work, ERASERHEAD is a must-see touchstone for all cinematic explorers.
David Lynch once described his stunning debut feature simply as “a dream of dark and troubling things,” but the unclassifiable ERASERHEAD is so much more: an expressionistic headtrip, a Grand Guignol nightmare, a pitch-black comedy of manners, and even a deeply personal allegory about the (post-) nuclear family