There comes a point in one’s life that a person becomes witness to something so disturbing, so shockingly profound that it shakes the viewer to their core, feeling as if they had observed the birth of a new art form. For myself, that came in the form of Eraserhead, David Lynch’s uncomfortable, psychologically unnerving autobiographical cry for help as he faces the fear of raising a child out of wedlock, one born prematurely, by himself.
And that’s pretty much the easy way of dissecting the series of images that transpire in this film. Applying any sort of logic or reason to the increasingly disturbing, disgusting, gory, and phallic images that crawl across the screen with a snail’s pace, one that makes the 88-minute run time feel like you are experiencing the birth and destruction of several acid-fueled universes. Even keeping the mantras of “Nothing is real” from Yellow Submarine and “It’s just a show, I should really just relax” from Mystery Science Theater 3000 does little to prevent oneself from almost throwing their hands up in the air in protest at the insanity, loudly questioning Lynch’s sobriety and mentality.
This film was made during a time when the midnight movie, a type of low-budget film with the atmosphere of an art house picture, which thrived on the shocking and bizarre, was king. Created without the intent to win the hearts and universal acclaim of a massive audience, or even a decent financial return, Midnight Movies, with its source of an extremely vast, ready-to-access audience, and virtually few limitations on the restriction of taste or acceptability, were a genre that, could easily serve as a testing ground to see if the new blood, with little to no experience in this type of medium, had what it takes to make an everlasting impact on the moviegoer’s mind and survive in the chaotic world that is Hollywood. A venue like the Midnight Movies would prove to be indispensable to Lynch, a young, fresh-faced graduate of the Boston School of the Museum of Fine Arts, struggling to make ends meet in the 1970’s. Drawing his knowledge and experience in art, as well as his love for rural, small-town Americas like the one he grew up in Montana, Lynch would soon use these indispensable factors to create some of the most visually striking, shocking, and weird films that would push him above and beyond the reigning champion of the midnight movie, and burrow himself into the subconscious of the average American audience.
That’s not to say the film is without some merit, however. Disgusting as it is, Lynch deserves due credit for creating some of the most inventive sets and effects since Monty Python, Stanley Kubrick, and the Universal Horror films. The last comparison is extremely apt because, like Frankenstein and a host of other James Whale monster movies, Lynch uses 100% practical effects for the makings of his own abominations. This makes prop characters like the fetus child (that bears more of a resemblance to a facehugger from Aliens than an actual child) extremely disturbing, knowing that the actors (who clearly look uncomfortable around it) had to constantly look at every time it was on set, in addition to the handlers who had to make it move, and the make-up artists that designed its wrappings, internal organs, and the pus that spewed out of its corpse as its life seeped away.
Eraserhead combines the best use of lighting and sound design I have ever seen in a film to date. It effectively contrasts oversaturated extreme high-key lighting, washing the entire set in the most painful white, which, like in the scenes that are almost overwhelmingly suffocated by pure darkness, only leaves a few faint details in certain objects, like the shape of a person’s face, distorting even the most normal thing into a predatory demon from the deepest pit of our fears. The extremely long-lasting shots, that often go for 10+ minutes, of absolute white and black with nothing happening only lures us to a morbidly curious state, our minds racing and filling the void with our own terrible predictions of what will happen next. This state of fear is only heightened by the soundtrack (if it can be called that), mostly ethereal, appears to remind us that something is indeed still going to happen. There are at least two identifiable sounds that occur here, which each serve a distinct purpose.
The first type is perhaps the most common whenever one of the more unusual set pieces, like the scenes where our main character is with the baby, the long shots of black and white, the zoom in to the radiator. Best described as blood rushing into one’s ears, this noise helps put us in a hypnotic state, gluing our eyes to the screen and focusing our thoughts on the events as they progress. However, there is another sound, one so painful it can cause the viewer to flinch as soon at goes off. Essentially what is a human dog whistle, this sound occurs, perhaps, during the most terrifying scenes in the movie, like the dissection of the baby, and the chickens, almost forcing us to cringe at the grotesque imagery and share in the pain of those that are suffering. According to Lynch, this union of sight, sound, and mood is essential. “I didn’t know anything about film when I first started--“ says Lynch in an interview with Pitchfork, “I was a painter-- but I [always] felt that sound was just as important as the picture. The sound, picture, and ideas have to marry. If an idea carries with it a mood, sound is critical to making that mood (par. 5).”
On one final note-Eraserhead was a by-product of David Lynch’s fears of becoming a father. When he was just graduating from film school, he learned that his girlfriend, who became his wife, was to be expecting their first child. Facing a dead end, and terrified of being unemployed while taking care of a wife and newborn child, Lynch created Eraserhead. This film can be summed up effectively as David Lynch trying to come to terms, as well as putting out a cry for help, with his fears of becoming a new father, especially since the main crux of the movie deals with Henry, currently unemployed, who just had a child out of wedlock that turned out to be premature (signifying his fears of his child’s safety). It also includes other highlights of a new parent’s mental torment, such as the spouse becoming stressed to the point that they abandon both child and mother/father, the child becoming sick to the point that the parent can’t even leave it for a second, and being driven to madness to the point that the parent decides it’s best for everyone to end the child’s life. It also heightens ones’ fear of the unknown, lingering on nothing for the unbearable length of time, as well as leaving the character’s fate a complete mystery at the end.
In closing, Eraserhead is one hell of a film. This is coming from a guy who has seen The Amityville Horror, the most terrifying Doctor Who episodes, and has read the collected works of Stephen King. Within the surprisingly short 88 minutes, you will be host to some of the most terrifying, disturbing, disgusting, and awe-inspiring sights and sounds that you will ever bear witness. Eraserhead is one of those films that should be viewed, with fair warning, at least once in a person’s life. But be alert. This is one dandy of a terrifying trip.
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