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Movies / On DVD / Eraserhead
Eraserhead

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Eraserhead (1976)

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Reviews Counted:40

Fresh:36

Rotten:4

Average Rating:7.9/10

Consensus: David Lynch's surreal Eraserhead uses detailed visuals and a creepy score to create a bizarre and disturbing look into a man's fear of parenthood.

Runtime: 90 mins

Genre: Horror/Suspense

Synopsis: Director David Lynch's feature-film debut is a masterpiece of the macabre and grotesque. Reportedly a reaction to the news that he was about to become a father, Lynch's ERASERHEAD follows a... Director David Lynch's feature-film debut is a masterpiece of the macabre and grotesque. Reportedly a reaction to the news that he was about to become a father, Lynch's ERASERHEAD follows a sensitive young man as he struggles to cope with impending parenthood. Henry Spencer (Jack Nance) lives in a hopeless industrial landscape, lusting after the beautiful woman who lives in the apartment across the hall. After his girlfriend, Mary (Charlotte Stewart), informs him of her pregnancy, he is forced to eat dinner with her extremely odd family. The baby is eventually born, only it isn't a human baby at all; it's a deformed creature that resembles a lizard. The baby won't stop crying, a horrifyingly piercing wail that drives Mary insane. Left alone with the baby, Henry is serenaded by a woman who lives inside his radiator, and soon he decides to murder his baby in order to stop the nightmare once and for all. Five years in the making, ERASERHEAD contains all of the trademark attributes of a Lynch film--haunting visuals, an ethereal score, unsettling sound design, and, most notably, a black sense of humor--creating a world onscreen that is exhilarating, terrifying, and unique. [More]

Starring: Jack Nance, Charlotte Stewart, Jeanne Bates, Joseph Allen

Starring: Jack Nance, Charlotte Stewart, Jeanne Bates, Joseph Allen, Judith Roberts, Allen Joseph, Jennifer Lynch

Director: David Lynch

Director: David Lynch
Screenwriter: David Lynch
Producer: David Lynch
Composer: David Lynch, Fats Waller, Peter Ivers

[See More Credits]

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Release:

Jan 10, 2006

No Details Exist
 
 

Reviews for Eraserhead

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1 - 20 (sorted by critic A-Z)
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May be the greatest debut by an American director after Citizen Kane.

Full Review Source: Combustible Celluloid | comment Comment
06/14/04
Jeffrey M. Anderson
Jeffrey M. Anderson
Combustible Celluloid

Lynch's remarkable first feature is a true original.

Full Review Source: Time Out | comment Comment
01/26/06
Geoff Andrew
Geoff Andrew
Time Out

This is a classic, no matter how comfortable it is to watch.

Full Review Source: Empire Magazine | comment Comment
01/01/00
Steve Beard
Steve Beard
Empire Magazine

...unwrap this baby and you will discover a whole universe of untold depths and hidden textures in which to become trapped, lost or sublimely elevated. Lynch's debut feature is freakish perfection.

Full Review Source: Channel 4 Film | comment Comment
09/03/08
Anton Bitel
Anton Bitel
Channel 4 Film

The discomfort we feel with the film indicates that the truths contained in Eraserhead, whatever they may be, are as surely true as they are unexamined.

Full Review Source: Film Freak Central | comment Comment
06/28/06
Walter Chaw
Walter Chaw
Film Freak Central

Eraserhead is a work of rare genius and real bravery; it’s a comic nightmare we all have at once and whose meanings lay just out of reach.

Full Review Source: Filmcritic.com | comment Comment
07/01/05
Jake Euker
Jake Euker
Filmcritic.com

If you can't rejoice in David Lynch, what is there to be happy about?

Full Review Source: PopMatters | comment Comment
11/11/04
Bill Gibron
Bill Gibron
PopMatters

Compared to the rest of Lynch's work this is a crude assemblage of ideas that would be used to far greater effect in later movies.

Full Review Source: BBC | comment Comment
04/17/01
Almar Haflidason
Almar Haflidason
BBC

David Lynch's first feature and, arguably, his best.

Full Review Source: Film Threat | comment Comment
02/09/06
Phil Hall
Phil Hall
Film Threat

Seen today, Eraserhead may make no more sense than it did 30 years ago, but its casually sinister air can now be seen as so much a part of Lynch's mature work.

Full Review Source: Mountain Xpress (Asheville, NC) | comment Comment
08/27/03
Ken Hanke
Ken Hanke
Mountain Xpress (Asheville, NC)

Lynch's films exist independent of space and time, and only after twisting and turning through their labyrinthine visual corridors can we begin to piece together how they came to be in the first place.

Full Review Source: Projection Booth | comment Comment
07/03/07
Rob Humanick
Rob Humanick
Projection Booth

David Lynch’s 1977 feature debut Eraserhead is one of those rare films that really deserves its cult status – a nightmarish, heavily symbolic story set in a postapocalyptic future.

Full Review Source: Times [UK] | comment Comment
09/12/08
Wendy Ide
Wendy Ide
Times [UK]

Some of it is disturbing, some of it is embarrassingly flat, but all of it shows a degree of technical accomplishment far beyond anything else on the midnight-show circuit.

Full Review Source: Chicago Reader | comment Comment
09/25/07
Dave Kehr
Dave Kehr
Chicago Reader
Top Critic Icon Top Critic

What a masterpiece of texture, a feat of artisanal attention, an ingenious assemblage of damp, dust, rock, wood, hair, flesh, metal, ooze.

Full Review Source: Village Voice | comment Comment
01/17/07
Nathan Lee
Nathan Lee
Village Voice
Top Critic Icon Top Critic

Whether there is more here than meets the horrified eye, is debatable, but 'Eraserhead' leaves no viewer cold.

Full Review Source: ReelTalk Movie Reviews | comment Comment
01/08/07
Donald J. Levit
Donald J. Levit
ReelTalk Movie Reviews

A stream of subconsciousness work of art, Eraserhead is Lynch's most surreal film. Packed with grotesque physical deformity and quest for spiritual purity, the film flaunts eerie sound and brilliant imagery.

Full Review Source: EmanuelLevy.Com | comment Comment
04/27/06
Emanuel Levy
Emanuel Levy
EmanuelLevy.Com

David Lynch’s remarkable first film, made in 1976, still looks like a minor masterpiece, mixing Gothic horror, surrealism and darkly expressionist mise-en-scène.

Full Review Source: This is London | comment Comment
09/12/08
Derek Malcolm
Derek Malcolm
This is London

Lynch, as he does with all his films, refuses to explain anything, although he does say that he has yet to read an interpretation that matches his.

Full Review Source: New York Post | comment Comment
01/17/07
V.A. Musetto
V.A. Musetto
New York Post
Top Critic Icon Top Critic

What’s it about? I can hear you shout. Therein lies the rub: not much really.

Full Review Source: Sci-Fi Movie Page | comment Comment
01/01/00
James O'Ehley
James O'Ehley
Sci-Fi Movie Page

It represented a monumental shift in how movies are seen and digested -- one that raised the level of aptitude and film literacy throughout the world.

Full Review Source: Hollywood Reporter | comment Comment
06/14/03
Douglas Pratt
Douglas Pratt
Hollywood Reporter
Top Critic Icon Top Critic
 
 
1 - 20 (sorted by critic A-Z)
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