Eraserhead (1977)
85%RT Audience Score: 82%
Awards & Nominations: 3 wins & 2 nominations
David Lynch’s surreal Eraserhead uses detailed visuals and a creepy score to create a bizarre and disturbing look into a man’s fear of parenthood
Eraserhead is like a fever dream that you can’t shake off. It’s a black and white nightmare that will leave you feeling like you just woke up from a bad trip. The sound design alone will make you feel like you’re trapped in a factory that’s about to collapse. But despite all of that, it’s still a beautiful and strange film that’s worth watching, even if it’s just to say that you survived it. David Lynch truly is the king of midnight movies.
Production Company(ies)
M K2 Productions, C E D Productions, France 3 Cinéma
Distributor
NA
Release Type
Theatrical
Filming Location(s)
Center for Advanced Film Studies, American Film Institute – 2021 N. Western Avenue, Los Angeles, California, USA
MPAA / Certificate
Not Rated
Year of Release
1978
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Color:Color
Black and White -
Sound mix:Mono (original release)
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Aspect ratio:1.85 : 1
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Runtime:NA
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Language(s):English
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Country of origin:United States
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Release date:Release Date (Theaters): Mar 17, 1977 Original
Release Date (Streaming): Jan 10, 2006
Genre(s)
Horror
Keyword(s)
starring Jack Nance, Charlotte Stewart, Allen Joseph, Jeanne Bates, Judith Roberts, Laurel Near, directed by David Lynch, written by David Lynch, horror, box office performance, budget, reviewed by Peter Bradshaw, Michael Wilmington, Tom Buckley, Derek Malcolm, Tim Robey, Wendy Ide, Tim Brayton, Dennis Harvey, Nicholas Bell, Rob Aldam, Jesús Fernández Santos, Christopher Lloyd, surreal, disturbing, bizarre, creepy, fear of parenthood, industrial gloom, lizard-like creature, disfigured lady, postapocalyptic future, black and white, sound design, cinematography, hyperbolically amplifying, dehumanizing, nightmarish, absurdity, unconventional, dark take on life
Worldwide gross: $23,557
Worldwide gross (inflation-adjusted): $115,395
Worldwide gross ranking (inflation-adjusted): 3,013
Worldwide tickets sold (est.): 12,584
US/Canada gross: NA
US/Canada gross (inflation-adjusted): NA
US/Canada gross ranking (inflation-adjusted): NA
US/Canada opening weekend:
US/Canada opening weekend (inflation-adjusted): NA
US/Canada opening weekend ranking (inflation-adjusted): NA
Budget and Earnings Details
Production budget (est.): NA
Production budget (inflation-adjusted): NA
Production budget ranking: NA
Marketing and distribution budget (inflation-adjusted est.): NA
Box office net earnings to date (inflation-adjusted est.): NA
ROI to date (est.): NA
ROI ranking: NA
Charlotte Stewart – Mary X
Allen Joseph – Mr. X
Jeanne Bates – Mrs. X
Judith Roberts – Beautiful Girl Across the Hall
Laurel Near – Lady in the Radiator
Director(s)
David Lynch
Writer(s)
David Lynch
Producer(s)
David Lynch
Film Festivals
Awards & Nominations
3 wins & 2 nominations
Academy Awards
All Critics (63) | Top Critics (15) | Fresh (57) | Rotten (6)
It’s beautiful and strange, with its profoundly disturbing ambient sound design of industrial groaning, as if filmed inside some collapsing factory or gigantic dying organism.
October 14, 2014 | Rating: 5/5
Peter Bradshaw
Guardian
TOP CRITIC
What makes Eraserhead great — and still, perhaps the best of all Lynch’s films? Intensity. Nightmare clarity. And perhaps also it’s the single-mindedness of its vision.
October 14, 2014 | Rating: 4/4
Michael Wilmington
Chicago Tribune
TOP CRITIC
A murkily pretentious shocker.
October 14, 2014
Tom Buckley
New York Times
TOP CRITIC
David Lynch’s remarkable first film, made in 1976, still looks like a minor masterpiece, mixing Gothic horror, surrealism and darkly expressionist mise-en-scne.
September 12, 2008 | Rating: 4/5
Derek Malcolm
London Evening Standard
TOP CRITIC
David Lynch has “cleaned up” his freaky feature debut, but don’t worry – it’s still an amazing industrial nightmare.
September 12, 2008 | Rating: 5/5
Tim Robey
Daily Telegraph (UK)
TOP CRITIC
David Lynch’s 1977 feature debut Eraserhead is one of those rare films that really deserves its cult status – a nightmarish, heavily symbolic story set in a postapocalyptic future.
September 12, 2008 | Rating: 4/5
Wendy Ide
Times (UK)
TOP CRITIC
A terrifying, the bottom-is-falling-out-from-beneath-us type of movie.
February 17, 2022 | Rating: 5/5
Tim Brayton
Alternate Ending
The king of midnight movies.
May 21, 2021
Dennis Harvey
48 Hills
An unparalleled film of strange beauty, Eraserhead might be one of the most perfect demonstrations of the power of film as a medium and an artistic achievement.
November 3, 2020 | Rating: 5/5
Nicholas Bell
IONCINEMA.com
Those black and white images stay with you; ingrained deeply in your soul.
October 15, 2020
Rob Aldam
Backseat Mafia
A hallucinatory drama with impeccable technique and exemplary cinematography. [Full Review in Spanish]
August 16, 2019
Jesús Fernández Santos
El Pais (Spain)
German Expressionism meets grindhouse schlock, Eraserhead is a student film-turned-cult classic that probably would’ve been better as a 20-minute short.
August 12, 2019 | Rating: 3/5
Christopher Lloyd
The Film Yap…
Plot
A film that defies conventional logic and storytelling, fueled by its dark nightmarish atmosphere and compellingly disturbing visuals. Henry Spencer is a hapless factory worker on his vacation when he finds out he’s the father of a hideously deformed baby. Now living with his unhappy, malcontent girlfriend, the child cries day and night, driving Henry and his girlfriend to near insanity.
Trivia
Goofs / Tidbits
No goofy or funny or odd comments were found in the Fresh Kernels database for Eraserhead.
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