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David Lynch’s Eraserhead – Review

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It’s David Lynch’s 71st birthday today. So I think it’s time to celebrate. How do you celebrate one of the greatest surrealists of all time? By watching his movies. So I decided to rewatch Eraserhead.

About the Movie

After accidentally impregnating a girl, Henry (Jack Nance) has to take care of the Baby. Sounds like the plot of a silly comedy, but in this case the Baby is horribly deformed and seems to enjoy torturing Henry.

It’s the feature length debut of David Lynch, shot over the course of many years (it started casting in 1971 and was released in 1977). Nance kept that hairstyle for the whole time. It’s in black and white, with a running time of only 88 minutes.

Eraserhead gif

My Thoughts

While the description above is true to the story’s plot, it doesn’t come close to describing what is actually happening on screen. First of all, Lynch doesn’t explain anything. You have to learn everything from the events on screen. That can be hard, especially if you’re not used to surreal cinema. Also, nothing normal happens in this movie at all. There is a whole dinner scene, with chicken the size of a fist. And oozing black liquids.

And that’s where the scariness comes in.

The plot alone sounds scary to young parents, maybe, but not to the average movie goer. But nothing in this movie feels real. It is all so far removed that it just makes you feel weird. This is not a movie that will make you jump. It’s a movie that ends, and you wonder what you just watched. And you feel kind of horrified by what has happened on screen. You’ll reflect; you have to think about it. But not in a dark room. That’s too scary.

Audio and Visuals

On the one hand, that’s because of the visuals. Everything not only feels off, it also looks weird. Or just plain scary. I’m pretty sure Lynch didn’t build a puppet for the horrible Baby, but instead just captured a real alien baby. Then there is the Lady in the Radiator with giant balls on her face. That sounds funny, but watching it without expecting it is horrible.

Baby from Eraserhead

Adding to the already scary vibe and imagery of the movie is great sound editing. Most of the time we get a white noise, changing in volume as events unfold. In some scenes the only other thing you hear is the deformed Baby crying, which in itself is a horrible sound. One scene just has all the bodily sounds of a person turned up to 11, which is crazy.

Final Thoughts

This is a movie that works on so many levels, so many levels we are all not used to from cinema. I actually watched Eraserhead, went to bed, and then immediately watched it again in the morning. And even today, re-watching it, I could not keep my eyes off the screen. I still had to turn on the lights while writing this review. Oh and of course I still did not fully understand what is happening on screen.

But that just adds to it. Similar to Donnie Darko, you have to find out what you just watched, read up on it, learn more about it. And watch it again. It’s really a masterpiece, but maybe not for everyone. I could watch this all the time and always feel scared and weirded out. But you might just think it’s boring. Best just try it out right now.

If you are interested in David Lynch, you might want to check out

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‘Evil Dead’ Film Franchise Getting TWO New Installments

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It was a risk for Fede Alvarez to reboot Sam Raimi’s horror classic The Evil Dead in 2013, but that risk paid off and so did its spiritual sequel Evil Dead Rise in 2023. Now Deadline is reporting that the series is getting, not one, but two fresh entries.

We already knew about the Sébastien Vaniček upcoming film that delves into the Deadite universe and should be a proper sequel to the latest film, but we are broadsided that Francis Galluppi and Ghost House Pictures are doing a one-off project set in Raimi’s universe based off of an idea that Galluppi pitched to Raimi himself. That concept is being kept under wraps.

Evil Dead Rise

“Francis Galluppi is a storyteller who knows when to keep us waiting in simmering tension and when to hit us with explosive violence,” Raimi told Deadline. “He is a director that shows uncommon control in his feature debut.”

That feature is titled The Last Stop In Yuma County which will release theatrically in the United States on May 4. It follows a traveling salesman, “stranded at a rural Arizona rest stop,” and “is thrust into a dire hostage situation by the arrival of two bank robbers with no qualms about using cruelty-or cold, hard steel-to protect their bloodstained fortune.”

Galluppi is an award-winning sci-fi/horror shorts director whose acclaimed works include High Desert Hell and The Gemini Project. You can view the full edit of High Desert Hell and the teaser for Gemini below:

High Desert Hell
The Gemini Project

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‘Invisible Man 2’ Is “Closer Than Its Ever Been” to Happening

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Elisabeth Moss in a very well-thought-out statement said in an interview for Happy Sad Confused that even though there have been some logistical issues for doing Invisible Man 2 there is hope on the horizon.

Podcast host Josh Horowitz asked about the follow-up and if Moss and director Leigh Whannell were any closer to cracking a solution to getting it made. “We are closer than we have ever been to cracking it,” said Moss with a huge grin. You can see her reaction at the 35:52 mark in the below video.

Happy Sad Confused

Whannell is currently in New Zealand filming another monster movie for Universal, Wolf Man, which might be the spark that ignites Universal’s troubled Dark Universe concept which hasn’t gained any momentum since Tom Cruise’s failed attempt at resurrecting The Mummy.

Also, in the podcast video, Moss says she is not in the Wolf Man film so any speculation that it’s a crossover project is left in the air.

Meanwhile, Universal Studios is in the middle of constructing a year-round haunt house in Las Vegas which will showcase some of their classic cinematic monsters. Depending on attendance, this could be the boost the studio needs to get audiences interested in their creature IPs once more and to get more films made based on them.

The Las Vegas project is set to open in 2025, coinciding with their new proper theme park in Orlando called Epic Universe.

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Jake Gyllenhaal’s Thriller ‘Presumed Innocent’ Series Gets Early Release Date

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Jake gyllenhaal presumed innocent

Jake Gyllenhaal’s limited series Presumed Innocent is dropping on AppleTV+ on June 12 instead of June 14 as originally planned. The star, whose Road House reboot has brought mixed reviews on Amazon Prime, is embracing the small screen for the first time since his appearance on Homicide: Life on the Street in 1994.

Jake Gyllenhaal’s in ‘Presumed Innocent’

Presumed Innocent is being produced by David E. Kelley, J.J. Abrams’ Bad Robot, and Warner Bros. It is an adaptation of Scott Turow’s 1990 film in which Harrison Ford plays a lawyer doing double duty as an investigator looking for the murderer of his colleague.

These types of sexy thrillers were popular in the ’90s and usually contained twist endings. Here’s the trailer for the original:

According to Deadline, Presumed Innocent doesn’t stray far from the source material: “…the Presumed Innocent series will explore obsession, sex, politics and the power and limits of love as the accused fights to hold his family and marriage together.”

Up next for Gyllenhaal is the Guy Ritchie action movie titled In the Grey scheduled for release in January 2025.

Presumed Innocent is an eight-episode limited series set to stream on AppleTV+ starting June 12.

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