10 Movies That Were Designed To Mess With Your Head

David Lynch started out as he meant to go on with his 1977 debut Eraserhead. It’s a brazenly confusing film, but unlike a lot of Lynch’s later work, it doesn’t really attempt to adhere to any social realist conventions or storytelling norms whatsoever. It feels more like a bizarre and extended Tool music video or series of individual segments than a connected whole, but its sounds and images are supposed to resonate with you more than anything that might resemble a plot.

Eraserhead is a sexually charged film filled with provocative and unnerving imagery, whether it's the strange Lady in the Radiator or Henry Spencer's alien, sperm-like child, and the whole thing is accompanied by a consistent low level of noise that sets the viewer on edge. It’s a difficult, black and white monstrosity, the sole intention of which is to make you uncomfortable, and even outrage you.

Whether or not it ‘makes sense’ is beside the point. Eraserhead has been aped by so many other directors – both experimental and otherwise – that its aesthetic and audio-visual significance speaks for itself.