Eraserhead (1977, David Lynch) is about how darkness can control you and embracing the light as a way of overcoming it. The prologue is MAN IN THE PLANET operates the controls in a shack with a hole in its roof, on a planet, in HENRY SPENCER’S head. These are dark forces within any of us. In this case, Man in the Planet releases the ANIMAL FETUS HEAD MOUNTED ON AN APPENDAGE CREATURE into a puddle. Puddles are a recurring motif in Eraserhead.
Back in his apartment, when Henry gets the torn in half photo of MARY X from his dresser drawer it shows that he was heartbroken and has since attempted to move on from her. Sex is mysterious in Eraserhead. In the home of Mary X, there’s a foreboding air of sex and terror. There’s something filthy about the way Mr. X has put all of the pipes in the part of town they live in; and something ominous about the way he refers to it as the hellhole it's become. There’s a depravity about him. And the repetitive squishy sounds of the man made chicken gushing ooze from its orifice as MRS X groans with her head tilted back achieves a frightening sexual tone. The shot where the subjective camera moves through the living room is Henry’s trust in Mary going out the window.
I don’t think we’re supposed to ask in the literal sense what the Animal Fetus Head Creature is. It’s a means by which Mary X and her family have coerced Henry into becoming entangled with its care. And because he can’t care for it in any proper sense of the term, then what’s it doing in his apartment? So meanwhile Henry’s put his libido squiggle in the little sack in a cabinet stash spot. It’s begun to rain outside. Mary X has left again for the night. The Animal Fetus Head Creature gets sick. Henry then goes to the stash cabinet, but doesn’t open it. Then, notice a shot of the mailbox. (The mailbox isn’t in Henry’s apartment though, it’s downstairs in the lobby. Why this shot? Because Henry’s thinking about some other form of desire or hope that could help him get away from this annoying creature.) But when Henry tries to grab his coat, the thing freaks out. So he can’t leave.
Now we begin to see what Henry’s been watching when he props his elbows up laying on his bed like he’s watching his favorite TV show, LADY IN THE RADIATOR. She represents Henry’s option to embrace the light. She’s an escape from the darkness (Man in the Planet) controlling Henry. The proscenium arch links her with staged entertainment, an elevated art that enhances your emotions, spirit, or mind. (And take note that doors to the proscenium open similarly to the way the elevator doors in his lobby do.) The remainder of what we get in this middle part of the movie is Lady in the Radiator stomps many smaller Animal Fetus Head mounted on Appendage Creatures as she smiles at us (Henry). Then Lady in the Radiator recedes back into darkness. Next Mary X is back in Henry’s bed, the sound design emphasizing the sound of her teeth chattering in her sleep and the wet sounds of her eye socket as she sweaty writhes in cocoon of bedsheets, spilling out a litter (like the dog with the puppies in her home earlier) of newborn Animal Fetus Head mounted on Appendage Creatures that Henry throws at the wall obliterating them. At this point the cabinet with the squiggle (Henry’s sex impulse) becomes animated and takes on a life of its own. It refuses to stay in the cabinet—as BEAUTIFUL GIRL ACROSS THE HALL calls on Henry for sex.
When Henry and Beautiful Girl Across the Hall embrace, they’re in something like a giant steaming puddle of white in the middle of his bed. And when the woman submerges below the surface the top of her head resembles a mound of a woman’s pubic hair. Sex between Henry and Beautiful Girl Across the Hall takes him into the proscenium, but at the moment he travels to his next place, the white liquid is seen as to open up like (the elevator doors and) Lady in the Radiator’s proscenium doors—this is there to indicate a sublime (transcendent) ascendance. Also before Henry goes into the radiator there are shots of Beautiful Girl Across the Hall terrified by the appearance of a large lump that resembles Henry’s planet.
I think in Eraserhead everything to do with Mary X is experienced in a reality that operates according to the logic of a nightmare. And everything that has to do with Beautiful Girl Across the Hall is experienced as a reality that operates according to the logic of a wet dream. Now the final part of the narrative after Beautiful Girl Across Hall comes over occurs in Henry’s psyche. We get “In Heaven Everything is Fine.” When Henry touches her everything fades to white; he’s practicing. He can’t fully overcome darkness on his first try. When he stops, Lady in the Radiator disappears, and quickly replaced by Man in the Planet.
Upon Henry’s return to reality from his psyche exploration, back in his apartment he looks through his window (for the first time brick wall is gone) and sees someone outside down below beating someone up in a puddle. Then Animal Fetus Head Creature taunts him mercilessly. But a closer shot outside again now shows there’s nothing happening at the puddle. It’s Henry finally beginning to see a world beyond his inner struggles, finding that courage. And his fears at seeing an attack are what the darkness delights in, but looking again realizing that they aren’t there is overcoming the fear.
When Henry sees Beautiful Girl Across Hall with other dude she sees Henry’s head for a moment with replacement Animal Fetus Head (dark has claimed him). So Henry overcomes the dark and cuts to the heart of his torment (literally cutting into the guts of Animal Fetus Head Creature). And the lamp shorts out just like the lamp shorted out at the dinner when Mrs X first burdened Henry with taking care of Animal Fetus Head Creature. Man in the Planet explodes. Henry literally embraces the light.
In conclusion, I think Henry might’ve been a virgin before he met Mary X. Or she was his first love. And she dumped him. Ghosted him. And it hurt. Everything else that happens in his reality occurs according to nightmare logic, stemming from them having sex, possibly guilt induced. What if Mary got pregnant? What if her mother Mrs X claimed he’s the father of a baby? Even though Henry knows beyond a reasonable doubt that he couldn’t be. What if he had to take care of it anyway? What if it was hideously deformed, sick, taunted him? What if Mary bailed (like she did the first time) and left him to raise it? What if she had more? And the implication that Mr X is depravity and Mrs X is lust and they are the source of terror sex disease. Nightmare.
Similarly, I think Henry might’ve only seen Beautiful Girl Across the Hall in passing. And his sex dream logic fantasizes that in his mailbox the pouch is this virility, like magic beans out of a fairytale, that make him so desirable to her that she’ll make the first move, knocking on his door in the middle of the night and outright initiating sex.
And throughout all this, Henry needs to get back to work. His vacation needs to end. It’s imperative he find his way back to Lady in the Radiator, his muse. And it doesn’t hurt that after he defeats Animal Fetus Head Creature garmonbozia is released from it like magma. In Eraserhead the elevator is only ever seen going up. The appearance of elevator-like doors to the stage where Lady in the Radiator is found is what uplifts us: heaven, spirit, art, cinema, inspiration; the white liquid elevator doors also include sex in this bliss.
I don’t think we’re supposed to ask in the literal sense what the Animal Fetus Head Creature is. It’s a means by which Mary X and her family have coerced Henry into becoming entangled with its care. And because he can’t care for it in any proper sense of the term, then what’s it doing in his apartment? So meanwhile Henry’s put his libido squiggle in the little sack in a cabinet stash spot. It’s begun to rain outside. Mary X has left again for the night. The Animal Fetus Head Creature gets sick. Henry then goes to the stash cabinet, but doesn’t open it. Then, notice a shot of the mailbox. (The mailbox isn’t in Henry’s apartment though, it’s downstairs in the lobby. Why this shot? Because Henry’s thinking about some other form of desire or hope that could help him get away from this annoying creature.) But when Henry tries to grab his coat, the thing freaks out. So he can’t leave.
Now we begin to see what Henry’s been watching when he props his elbows up laying on his bed like he’s watching his favorite TV show, LADY IN THE RADIATOR. She represents Henry’s option to embrace the light. She’s an escape from the darkness (Man in the Planet) controlling Henry. The proscenium arch links her with staged entertainment, an elevated art that enhances your emotions, spirit, or mind. (And take note that doors to the proscenium open similarly to the way the elevator doors in his lobby do.) The remainder of what we get in this middle part of the movie is Lady in the Radiator stomps many smaller Animal Fetus Head mounted on Appendage Creatures as she smiles at us (Henry). Then Lady in the Radiator recedes back into darkness. Next Mary X is back in Henry’s bed, the sound design emphasizing the sound of her teeth chattering in her sleep and the wet sounds of her eye socket as she sweaty writhes in cocoon of bedsheets, spilling out a litter (like the dog with the puppies in her home earlier) of newborn Animal Fetus Head mounted on Appendage Creatures that Henry throws at the wall obliterating them. At this point the cabinet with the squiggle (Henry’s sex impulse) becomes animated and takes on a life of its own. It refuses to stay in the cabinet—as BEAUTIFUL GIRL ACROSS THE HALL calls on Henry for sex.
When Henry and Beautiful Girl Across the Hall embrace, they’re in something like a giant steaming puddle of white in the middle of his bed. And when the woman submerges below the surface the top of her head resembles a mound of a woman’s pubic hair. Sex between Henry and Beautiful Girl Across the Hall takes him into the proscenium, but at the moment he travels to his next place, the white liquid is seen as to open up like (the elevator doors and) Lady in the Radiator’s proscenium doors—this is there to indicate a sublime (transcendent) ascendance. Also before Henry goes into the radiator there are shots of Beautiful Girl Across the Hall terrified by the appearance of a large lump that resembles Henry’s planet.
I think in Eraserhead everything to do with Mary X is experienced in a reality that operates according to the logic of a nightmare. And everything that has to do with Beautiful Girl Across the Hall is experienced as a reality that operates according to the logic of a wet dream. Now the final part of the narrative after Beautiful Girl Across Hall comes over occurs in Henry’s psyche. We get “In Heaven Everything is Fine.” When Henry touches her everything fades to white; he’s practicing. He can’t fully overcome darkness on his first try. When he stops, Lady in the Radiator disappears, and quickly replaced by Man in the Planet.
Upon Henry’s return to reality from his psyche exploration, back in his apartment he looks through his window (for the first time brick wall is gone) and sees someone outside down below beating someone up in a puddle. Then Animal Fetus Head Creature taunts him mercilessly. But a closer shot outside again now shows there’s nothing happening at the puddle. It’s Henry finally beginning to see a world beyond his inner struggles, finding that courage. And his fears at seeing an attack are what the darkness delights in, but looking again realizing that they aren’t there is overcoming the fear.
When Henry sees Beautiful Girl Across Hall with other dude she sees Henry’s head for a moment with replacement Animal Fetus Head (dark has claimed him). So Henry overcomes the dark and cuts to the heart of his torment (literally cutting into the guts of Animal Fetus Head Creature). And the lamp shorts out just like the lamp shorted out at the dinner when Mrs X first burdened Henry with taking care of Animal Fetus Head Creature. Man in the Planet explodes. Henry literally embraces the light.
In conclusion, I think Henry might’ve been a virgin before he met Mary X. Or she was his first love. And she dumped him. Ghosted him. And it hurt. Everything else that happens in his reality occurs according to nightmare logic, stemming from them having sex, possibly guilt induced. What if Mary got pregnant? What if her mother Mrs X claimed he’s the father of a baby? Even though Henry knows beyond a reasonable doubt that he couldn’t be. What if he had to take care of it anyway? What if it was hideously deformed, sick, taunted him? What if Mary bailed (like she did the first time) and left him to raise it? What if she had more? And the implication that Mr X is depravity and Mrs X is lust and they are the source of terror sex disease. Nightmare.
Similarly, I think Henry might’ve only seen Beautiful Girl Across the Hall in passing. And his sex dream logic fantasizes that in his mailbox the pouch is this virility, like magic beans out of a fairytale, that make him so desirable to her that she’ll make the first move, knocking on his door in the middle of the night and outright initiating sex.
And throughout all this, Henry needs to get back to work. His vacation needs to end. It’s imperative he find his way back to Lady in the Radiator, his muse. And it doesn’t hurt that after he defeats Animal Fetus Head Creature garmonbozia is released from it like magma. In Eraserhead the elevator is only ever seen going up. The appearance of elevator-like doors to the stage where Lady in the Radiator is found is what uplifts us: heaven, spirit, art, cinema, inspiration; the white liquid elevator doors also include sex in this bliss.
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