This was Lynch's first feature. It took him a long times to make. It is shot in black and white which gives it a very serious, art house, neo-expressionist look. Of course, as with all Lynch films Eraserhead is just as weird, perhaps even more weird than some of his other films. The creatures in this film resemble the creatures from alien very strikingly. The plot centers around Henry a weird looking man with very high, wavy hair. He always looks distressed throughout the film, worried about something; the baby, his wife, the neighbor next door.
The narrative of the film is linear, unlike other Lynch films. It starts off with Henry in an industrial wasteland and moves to his wife's home, then to Henry's tiny apartment. There are several gross scenes with the hugely deformed baby. The gross scenes build tension up until the final sequence of the film when Henry stabs the baby with scissors and puts it out of it's misery. The dialogue is sparse. It is a short film, only about 86 minutes.
The things I liked best about the film are the shots and the tension sequences. There are several great camera shots of his neighbor which I thought were great and made even better by the use of light against the desolate, dark background. There were also a lot of great shots of the main character. Several using a brigh white against the dark background which brought his hair and face rendering it a stark outline against the black backdrop.
I was trying to find a review to argue with about this film but unfortunately there are very few out there. Only some short reviews of the film on the Guardian, the nytimes.com. Ebert.com didn't have anything. It is a very good film. Some of it resembles Lynch's short film that he made about his childhood. Eraserhead, Lynch has stated, is about his fears of being a father. There are clearly some themes in this film that allude to that.
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