Eraserhead

AFI/Lynch. Director David Lynch; Producer David Lynch; Screenplay David Lynch; Camera Fred Elms; Editor David Lynch; Music Fats Waller; Art Director David Lynch

Jack Nance
Charlotte Stewart
Jeanne Bates
Allen Josephs
Judith Anna Roberts
Laurel Near

Eraserhead is a sickening bad-taste exercise made by David Lynch under the auspices of the American Film Institute.

Set, apparently, in some undefined apocalyptic future era, Eraserhead consists mostly of a man sitting in a room trying to figure out what to do with his horribly mutated child. Lynch keeps throwing in graphic close-ups of the piteous creature, and pulls out all gory stops in the unwatchable climax.

Like a lot of AFI efforts, the pic has good tech values (particularly the inventive sound mixing), but little substance or subtlety. The mind boggles to learn that Lynch labored on this pic for five years.

(B&W) Available on VHS, DVD. Extract of a review from 1977. Running time: 100 MIN.

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