When writer / director David Lynch (this was his first movie) was asked what Eraserhead was about, he famously replied "it's about 90 minutes".
It's impossible to review Eraserhead in any conventional way, because it simply isn't a conventional movie; I can't say for sure that the sequence of events count as a plot, much less a cohesive one (I'm not even sure they're a sequence in the strictest sense). It's perhaps unsurprising that he movie is popular amongst the chemically enhanced.
Eraserhead isn't a film you watch, it's an experience you have; it's strangeness, coupled with its immersive and relentless soundscape of organ music, and industrial and haunting sound effects (I strongly recommend headphones, if you aren't lucky enough to have external speakers) make it more akin to being in someone else's dream or nightmare... In fact, Lynch has claimed that he didn't write Eraserhead; he dreamt it.
The effects work is noteworthy - especially the "baby", and especially considering the movie's scant $10,000 budget, but I really don't want to give too much away.
Full of industrial sequences and bizarre slices of not-right home-life, Eraserhead is less a movie, more a work of surrealist art, and taken as such it's superb... but as a horror movie, or movie in any traditional sense, it fails miserably.
You'll either love this movie, or hate it; 'get' it, or find it repugnant. For the first time I'm going to both recommend this movie, and suggest that you avoid it; because depending who you are, it's one or the other, with little in-between.
Showing posts with label Eraserhead. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Eraserhead. Show all posts
Friday, 25 April 2014
Saturday, 19 April 2014
Eraserhead - Lisa's Review
I really don't want to waste much time reviewing this movie. The time spent watching it is enough time wasted.
So you may have guessed that I didn't enjoy the movie. Well, the fact that it is surrealism from start to finish should give you an idea of my viewpoint. I HATE surrealism. I hate arty farty movies. Calling this a movie is a stretch of the imagination. It reminded me of one of those repetitively played out arty farty clips you see at art galleries masquerading as art. Something that no matter how hard you try (if indeed you can be bothered) you can't even begin to make sense of it.
The movie follows a man called Henry Spencer. I couldn't work out if what occured in the film was reality or whether it was madness from the dreams of Henry. From being a head in space to the singing woman in the radiator. Henry and his girlfriend (who keeps having weird fits that everyone ignores) spawn a freaky, wierd mutant baby who cries through the whole damn movie before it transforms into something even more fucking obscene.
This is a movie which may make sense if you're under the influence of something mind altering, but watching it simply with a glass of 7UP and a Dairymilk, I'll be fucked if it made sense to me.
In conclusion and to sum up, I thought this movie was absolutely shite. I hated every last minute of it and really struggle with trying to write a review which makes any sort of sense. Avoid at all costs.
Friday, 18 April 2014
Week 152 - Eraserhead (1977)
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