Director David Lynch has personally restored his now cult classic first feature so that modern audiences can appreciate the full force of a moody monochrome nightmare that Lynch himself has described as ‘a dream of dark and troubling things’. Relying heavily on atmosphere and a painterly texture, Eraserhead presents an enclosed dream world filled with intimations of strangeness and dread. It has no storyline to speak of, but memorable images and sounds abound. In a gloomy apartment surrounded by a bleak industrial landscape, Jack Nance and his wife (Charlotte Stewart) nurse their deformed, mewling infant. Behind a radiator in the couple’s room, a woman in a tutu sings and dances while sperm-like objects rain on to the stage. Nance’s head is removed and used to make pencil-top erasers.
A disturbing surrealist fantasy that combines elements of horror and black comedy, Eraserhead is a truly unique cinematic experience that is open to many interpretations and virtually defies description. It remains determinedly weird and very, very wonderful.