All 10 David Lynch Movies Ranked By Weirdness

Lynch’s first feature film is a surreal and horrific exploration of paternal anxiety.

Set against a desolate, smoke-filled, industrial backdrop, and filled from beginning to end with bizarre sexual imagery - mainly sperms - Henry Spencer (Jack Nance) discovers that his girl-next-door girlfriend Mary (Charlotte Stewart) is pregnant, and he must care for an inhuman child that resembles, well, a sperm.

Already we’re deep into Weirdtown. That’s before we meet the Lady in the Radiator - a facially deformed girl-next-door archetype who sings music hall songs and steps on, yep, big sperms. And then there’s an extended nightmare sequence where Henry’s head rockets off his shoulders, only to be collected by a child who takes it to a pencil factory to be turned into erasers.

Eraserhead’s droning sound design and crawling pace trap the viewer in a claustrophobic nightmare, with the destructive finale providing a transgressive release for both Henry and us.

Weirdest Bit: You really are spoilt for choice when trying to choose Eraserhead’s weirdest bit. However, the scene where Henry has dinner with Mary’s family is the genesis of so much Lynchian suburban horror: a cruel matriarch who sexually interrogates Henry, a roast chicken that bleeds from its nether-regions, an emasculated father, and a zombified relative holding a bowl of salad all serve to pervert the wholesome fantasy of romance between the boy and girl next door.