Eraserhead
Eraserhead is a 1977 film from the USA, directed by David Lynch, running 89 minutes. reelscum files it under transgressive & midnight.
- Year
- 1977 · 1970s films
- Country
- USA
- Runtime
- 89 min
- Director
- David Lynch
- Updated
- 10 Aug 2026
- Obscurity
- canon (2/100)
Defined in the glossary: Transgressive & midnight
Lynch's industrial nightmare about fatherhood. It played midnight for years and made him.
David Lynch's first feature, made over five years on almost no money, is a black-and-white industrial nightmare about a man in a decaying city caring for a monstrous, mewling infant. Its dread, its sound design and its imagery, the baby, the radiator lady, have haunted viewers for decades.
It ran at midnight screenings for years and built Lynch's reputation entirely through word of mouth. It resists all interpretation and works purely as sustained unease. One of the most singular debuts in film, and a cornerstone of the midnight-movie tradition.
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