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The residents of a suburban high-rise apartment building are being infected by a strain of parasites that turn them into mindless, sex-crazed fiends out to infect others by the slightest sexual contact.
This film contains four distinct, separate stories. "Black Hair": A poor samurai who divorces his true love to marry for money, but finds the marriage disastrous and returns to his old wife... See full summary »
A bag full of symbolic folklore about werewolves, or, rather, their sexual connotation. Granny tells her granddaughter Rosaleen strange, disturbing tales about innocent maidens falling in ... See full summary »
Director:
Neil Jordan
Stars:
Angela Lansbury,
David Warner,
Graham Crowden
Scientists create a resonator to stimulate the pineal gland (sixth sense), and open up a door to a parallel (and hostile) universe. Based on a story by H. P. Lovecraft.
A man tries to uncover an unconventional psychologist's therapy techniques on his institutionalized wife, while a series of brutal attacks committed by a brood of mutant children coincides with the husband's investigation.
Is it a nightmare or an actual view of a post-apocalyptic world? Set in an industrial town in which giant machines are constantly working, spewing smoke, and making noise that is inescapable, Henry Spencer lives in a building that, like all the others, appears to be abandoned. The lights flicker on and off, he has bowls of water in his dresser drawers, and for his only diversion he watches and listens to the Lady in the Radiator sing about finding happiness in heaven. Henry has a girlfriend, Mary X, who has frequent spastic fits. Mary gives birth to Henry's child, a frightening looking mutant, which leads to the injection of all sorts of sexual imagery into the depressive and chaotic mix. Written by
Rick Gregory <rag.apa@email.apa.org>
David Lynch had a lot of trouble getting financial assistance from the AFI, because the script was only 20 pages long. He received a grant from AFI but after about 3 years of production, ran out of money. At one point Terrence Malick screened the film for a potential financial backer, who walked out, calling the movie "bullshit". See more »
Goofs
The man's hands on the door at the beginning. See more »
Quotes
[first lines]
Beautiful Girl Across the Hall:
Are you Henry?
Henry Spencer:
Yes?
Beautiful Girl Across the Hall:
A girl named "Mary" called on the payphone in the hallway about an hour ago. She said that she's at her parents and that you're invited to dinner.
Henry Spencer:
Oh, yeah?
[after a long pause]
Henry Spencer:
Well... thank you very much.
[Henry enters his apartment, while the girl slowly closes the door to hers]
See more »
Crazy Credits
There are no opening credits, just a long, tilted close-up of the face of Jack Nance. See more »
I've watched Eraserhead countless times. In theaters. Off of the infamous Japanese-subtitled VCR copy. Off of the recent Lynch re-release. From around the late 70s onward. Yes, that long.
I have friends who won't let me recommend movies to them any more.
Anyway, the capsule summary, "Can't be summarized," is pretty close.
First, it is not a movie. It is not a film.
It is a piece of art.
All of the comments I read that attempt to describe it as a movie fail for precisely that reason. If you read the ones that can handle it, they handle it as an art review.
So don't even think of it as a movie. Don't recommend it as a movie. It doesn't work.
I'll also admit that I sat in a haze for decades, absorbed in the imagery. In awe of the impressions. And finally, an image crystallized, an image of what this was a portrait of. (And, of course, I expect this image may change with repeated viewings...) And as I watch it, with this in mind, a continuity appears.
We are living in hell, we just don't realize it.
198 of 307 people found this review helpful.
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I've watched Eraserhead countless times. In theaters. Off of the infamous Japanese-subtitled VCR copy. Off of the recent Lynch re-release. From around the late 70s onward. Yes, that long.
I have friends who won't let me recommend movies to them any more.
Anyway, the capsule summary, "Can't be summarized," is pretty close.
First, it is not a movie. It is not a film.
It is a piece of art.
All of the comments I read that attempt to describe it as a movie fail for precisely that reason. If you read the ones that can handle it, they handle it as an art review.
So don't even think of it as a movie. Don't recommend it as a movie. It doesn't work.
I'll also admit that I sat in a haze for decades, absorbed in the imagery. In awe of the impressions. And finally, an image crystallized, an image of what this was a portrait of. (And, of course, I expect this image may change with repeated viewings...) And as I watch it, with this in mind, a continuity appears.
We are living in hell, we just don't realize it.