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THE BEST PICTURE BY ALL TIME

This is a kind of film that many people don't want to watch, but i think that it's only because it is so strange to make them fear! I never see some like that! And Lynch never did a thing like that ( sic!). Watch it! watch it watch it! If you love art and great cinema!

A classic and benchmark in mood filming!

I'm waiting for this film to be release on DVD! In hopes of more deleted scenes, Out-takes and directors comments! I can dream can't I? Or should I ask for what may be another Lynching of my peace of mind? It's dark, It's gloomy, and foreboding! The film got such a cold chilling edge on it. You have to focus on every frozen moment and capture the essence of feeling of every moment that you view scenes from Eraserhead. Cold as Ice and dead on with fear and loathing of the pain of living and dealing with things we cannot control yet still force our lives into. We can't paint it any other way better than David Lynch. There isn't a better work out by this extra ordinary director. You will have to either tie the viewer to the chair to watch this or threaten them off your x-mas list from watching it every month. I fully recommend this film for the open minded and thought pro-vocable public. It will make you thankful your neurosis aren't as obvious.

A Symbolic Feast

This is one of the most haunting and beautifully made movies I think that's ever been made. The story and the symbols continue on and on and never seem to tire of new interpretations. Henry is haunted by his own problems and contemplates the most ultimate of self-destructive behaviour. I think this movie deserves a premier place in cinematic history as the most visually and symbolically rich film of the latter half of the 20th century. It's a masterpiece that I believe is duplicated in Lynch's recent movie Lost Highway. LH is essentially a re-make of Eraserhead but obviously murder, in Lynch's eyes, doesn't quite capture the depression and horror of suicide. Both movies take place within the mind of the main characters. In the end Eraserhead is by far the better movie and the better story because it was ground breaking. You can't rate this movie on the scale provided. It surpasses the scale for sure.

GREAT FILM BY ANY CRITERIA.

This is not a strange movie, if you watch it with that in mind you won't see it for what it is: a smart, funny, satyrical, complex, disturbing, and beautiful masterpiece. Lynch spent five years of his life on ERASERHEAD, which might be why it is one of the greatest films in cinema history.

Brilliant

David Lynch's debut is definitely something everyone should see, are they interested in artistic cinema. "A dream of dark and troubling things", as Lynch describes it, it is indeed written and filmed with the logic and coherence of a nightmare - and when you're through dreaming, you start wondering what it all really meant.

Like Andrei Tarkovsky often did, Lynch deliberately tells us as very little of what's actually going on, and it makes it much more interesting than most films; the audience gets to construct a whole out of the pieces and is allowed to think further, beyond what's actually said, and that's what makes artist and audience into equals in the interpretation of the film.

Whether you're interested in art film, cult film or horror, you must pick this up. Not for everyone, though.

Bizarre and brilliant

David Lynch's first movie is by far the weirdest movie ever made. But if you can watch it without going mad, you will discover that there is alot of metaphors and symbols that make the movie more fascinating and fun with every time you watch it. Its far scarier than any typical horror movie because it messes with your mind and it plays on your imagination. It also lulls you into a state of pure shock when you begin to feel the whole movie is a nightmare of yours. This movie is filled with wonderful imagery, beautiful cinematography and also appeals to the cult-filmgoer. Watch it and love it.

Mindblowingly vegetative! A cinematic downer for the soul.

I've never liked David Lynch's stuff. 'Twin Peaks' was a totally left-field affair that never attracted my attention. Still, his 1977/78 'Eraserhead' is the exception for me. A bizarre hybrid of visual lullabye and sonic nightmare, this film is on par with 'Vampyr' in terms of its concealment of any plot line. What you get instead is a string of images that contribute to an overrall impression of the printer's world. He's 'on holiday' from work, terrified of fatherhood and is being slowly eaten alive by his own sense of perceptions regarding the mindscape he is trapped within. I always watch this very late at night because I believe that the images will soothe me and implant interesting mental sequences in my slumber hours. Shot in black and white, they present themselves as some of the most memorable in cinema history. The movie's score is droning at times, thundering at others, occasionally helped along by the shrill squeals of the dolphin-like offspring of the pathetic, stack-haired 'protagonist'. The true beauty of this picture is that you have to watch everything over and over again to glean more. You can never really hope to 'get the point' of the work in its entirety but what you do manage to decipher in the film is worth retaining in your memory banks. The acting conforms to a style not seen since Bertolt Brecht wrote and the dialogue is minimal. I would surmise that drug-oriented people would have a dull time here as the effects of the chemicals and the power of the film would likely cancel each other out. Definitely worth seeing at least once in your life.....

Weird, but thought provoking

This is quite possibly the strangest movie I have ever seen, however, its also David Lynch's first movie, so its justified. The movie is about how Nance and Stewart have a deformed chicken creature-like baby that just screaches all of the time. The scenes with the baby are very disturbing, and eerie. Nance is also visited, intermitantly, by an angel like women who lives in his radiator! He also has several dreams within dreams. Thats the movie's plot, yeah I know its weird, but altogether its a good movie, although impossible to follow. It can only be enjoyed as a Lynchian vision of an over-industrialised society and what the effects of that lifestyle have on us all. Well worth viewing, but keep an open mind.

Strange

This is without a doubt the strangest movie I have ever seen. It has no violence, no bad language, and very little sex, yet it is probably the most disturbing movie I have ever seen. It is done in black and white and is almost a silent movie. This makes no sense what so ever. I guess it is good in the fact that it makes you feel different and it disturbs you. Get it, you will think different of movies.

Eraserhead: A Pencil Has to Be Made From Something

This was a strange--yet good--David Lynch film to view. Not only does the low exposure B&W film make it all the more foreboding and better, but the visuals--such as Henry's infant child--add to the overall mystery of the film. A little hard to follow here and there, but if you start looking over what your mind recorded when you watched it, thousands of conclusions can be formed. Overall, a great David Lynch film. Buy it, rent it, JUST PLAIN WATCH ERASERHEAD. --Matt Fore FilmGuy102@aol.com

Wonderfully bizarre!

One could describe the setting as grim - urban decay at its worst with a strongly interwoven theme of sterile sexuality. The droning soundtrack adds to the mood of claustrophobia. A spineless protagonist sporting an astonisghing hairstyle finds himself trapped in a world without logic, a land of dreams where anything can happen. Cooked chickens rhythmically spurt out blood at the dinner table, the Lady in the Radiator systematically squashes blobs of semen (life/) in her dance routine and an E.T. lookalike, mutant baby explodes on screen. Don't look for a conventional narrative. Rather the film represents an exploration of post-modernistic themes. Don't walk in with expectations. You'll find sexism, comedy, contradictions - anything is possible. This is not a simple film. Full marks to Eraserhead for its unconventional perspective.

"No bigger than your fist... and they're man-made!"

I can't add much more to the great things people have already said about this movie, but maybe, the more of us that rave about it, the sooner it will be released on DVD.

This is, hands-down, my favorite movie. I've seen it at least a half-dozen times, and it still has the same effect on me. In addition to all the elements of the film that have already been stated in previous reviews, the surreal imagery is so captivating that it transports me to another place. The industrial sounds of steam and trains. That apartment building that seems to exist in the middle of a coal yard or something. When Henry leaves his building to walk anywhere, there is no sign of life, streets, people or anything... just barren industrial wasteland.The sounds are all so expertly varied so as not to turn into a drone, while conveying a consistent opressive quality.

This film operates on so many levels... it tells a story, conveys real-world fears... we laugh at Henry for his weirdness and his misfortune, while deeply identifying with him as the "good guy" in a world that's even weirder than he is. All this is done with visual and sound imagery that is nothing short of artistic genius without being pretentious or overblown. This film is much too important to be unavailable.

Chilling

This is a film all about sin and guilt. David Lynch is at his surreal best here; the late John Nance brilliantly portrays Henry, a lonely man who finds himself in the situation of having to look after his ex-girlfriends' (extremely) premature "baby" - an appropriate symbol of his original sin. Henry tries to be a good father, but is increasingly drawn to a dancing girl in the radiator (who represents suicide). This is a very stunning work of art.

Disturbing

A very dark and extremely disturbing film, that is so unpleasant it is almost unwatchable.

About a third of the people in the screening I attended walked out during the film.

Only a macabre curiosity kept me there, but I have no intention of watching it again.

Films this unpleasant are unnecessary.

Eraserhead

If only one film had to be chosen to show in film school, this would have to be on the top of the list. Eraserhead fills the screen with enough visual sexual puns to give Freud a nightmare in this offbeat David Lynch classic. It is an amazing banquet of tightly controlled images that bombard the senses. From the Man in the Planet's release and fruitless attempt to "pull back" to poor Henry's vain effort to shake off the responsibility that he's inadvertently stepped in, this film takes the viewer down a very different sort of rabbit hole. Alice definitely doesn't live here. The audience follows Henry into his forced marriage and watches him as he turns on the spit of his actions' consequence. This universal tale of a moment of pleasure and its inevitable outcome can make you squirm! Particularly potent is the dinner scene with Mary's parents where Henry learns that "there's a baby". From the moment Henry arrives the audience is bombarded with claustrophobic visual references to birth, responsibility for actions and to ultimately sexual desire turned rancid as Mrs. X in a feverish display attempts to seduce Henry's not-so-attractive personae. But it is Mr. X who gives us the male perspective with his soliloquy of building a life out of thin air as he describes putting in the pipes (to control everything) and then going numb from it. He fatefully points the way for Henry when he describes massaging his numb arm back from its dead state. And then, in a supreme act of irony, Mr. X hands Henry the knife, bidding him to do what he can't. But poor Henry's attention is riveted only on the near future as he hallucinates (or does he?) the chickens oozing afterbirth. In the end, the audience is left with hope, but not until Henry earns his "Horrible Henry" moniker. But it is the hope of irony. Does Henry pay? Or is he doomed and are we all? In heaven, everything is fine-or so we're led to believe. Greatness in film is in the creator, not the accounting office. Shot on a shoestring, Eraserhead transcends. Once cannot imagine the production to be any more lavish. This is a must-see for any serious film student. Its dark and quirky imagery and it's tightly controlled editing shows that real genius is not a substitute for meagbuck budgets.

eraserhead

Quite possibly the most thought provoking film of all time. I could watch this movie a thousand times to try to derive its full meaning. No film has or will ever capture my attention like this one has with its hidden plot and symbolism. (Unless of course David Lynch decides to return to his roots). I thought Twin Peaks was off beat until i saw Lost Highway. I thought Lost Highway was twisted and perfectly vague in its story telling, until i saw Eraserhead. Let's just say that Eraserhead makes Lost Highway seem like The Wizard of Oz.

In Heaven, Everything Is Fine

Anyone who is interested in the possibilities of film should see this astounding work, David Lynch's first, and in my opinion one of the all-time greats. It is the antithesis of the usual Hollywood experience where the viewer is usually spoon-fed a cliched, formulaic plot. In this case the film is what the viewer makes of it - I believe most, if not all of the "story" takes place in the protagonist's mind. Perhaps it's a glimpse into the mind of someone slowly going insane? Perhaps not. No matter - you actually have to think and decide for yourself. Eerie, haunting, unsettling and memorable, Eraserhead is nevertheless extremely funny in parts, which keeps the viewer off-guard. A unique experience and unlike any other film I have ever seen.

Kubrick's favorite film

I read the book Lynch on Lynch and in it David relays a story about how Stanley Kubrick invited some friends over in the late seventies to watch his "favorite film" and when the lights went down Eraserhead flickered up on the screen. Praise doesnt get much higher than that. For those interested in immersing themselves into a wholly realized artistic vision track down a copy of this bizarro. I love it!

Look at my knees!

The most purely deranged film ever made, meaning it's probably the best film ever made. I don't own a DVD player, but I'd buy one specifically for this movie. God, I haven't seen it in years and I miss it so. Watching the baby is repulsive and addictive. The chicken scene made me laugh in a different way. It changed the sound of my laugh. I need to see the chicken scene so that I can feel young again.

Dear David Lynch, please release this film on DVD and video!

This is THE experimental/cult film by which all others are measured. No other film comes close to capturing depression and loneliness like it and it has been out of print on video for over a decade. I never understand why trashy hollywood films stay available and classics go out of print. I work in a mailorder business and ERASERHEAD is the number one requested film.