Eraserhead (16mm)

About this event

In a desolate industrial landscape, nervous printer Henry Spencer learns that his estranged girlfriend has given birth to his child. The couple attempt to care for the premature, inhuman infant in Henry’s cramped apartment, but domestic life rapidly disintegrates. Left alone with the constantly crying baby, Henry retreats into fantasies involving the mysterious woman who lives inside his radiator. David Lynch’s first feature is a masterpiece of handmade surrealism, created over several years with a tiny crew and an obsessive attention to image and sound. Its stark monochrome photography, elaborate industrial environments and enveloping mechanical drone transform anxieties about sex, parenthood and responsibility into a private nightmare. Unsettling, darkly funny and endlessly mysterious, ERASERHEAD remains one of the defining works of American midnight cinema. Introduced by Dominic Hicks and presented on 16mm with a reel intermission and programme notes.