Month of Horror - Day 20: Eraserhead

"Well, Henry, what do you know?"

For a long time, I thought Eraserhead starred Tim Robbins.

See why?

The last time Eraserhead was featured on He Shot Cyrus it was on the Top 5 Movies I Don't Ever Want to Watch list. It fell under the "So-Called Classic That Doesn't Appeal to Me on Any Level" category. The point of the list was to watch all of those movies my brain had dismissed long ago. I made it through The Gingerdead Man, the six-hour Pride and Prejudice miniseries, and Last House on the Left before I decided that I liked myself too much to continue. Tonight, masochism rides again. Luckily, I'm feeling pretty open-minded, pretty receptive to the avant-garde side of life. When you spend your day writing scripts for corporate Flash tutorials, an undead roasted baby chick just...helps.

At my high school, there were these two brothers, Anthony and Denney, twins. They didn't care for Will Smith, She's All That, or the hidden meaning behind Mambo No. 5. None of the important high school things. They liked David Bowie, their noise composure group "Fleshhook" and best of all, fucked up movies. One of my favorite memories is watching a bootleg VHS tape of Meet the Feebles that Anthony let me borrow. I grew up in a strict religious house and watching that herion-addicted rabbit-puppet just...helped.

One day, sophmore year, I think, Anthony told me about a movie called Eraserhead. He didn't go into details but he said that it made him never want to have children. Suddenly, my religious propaganda-filled youth flooded back to me and Eraserhead offically became the "Watch and Go to Hell" movie, to be avoided at all costs. As I matured, I became pretty sure that watching Eraserhead wasn't going to talk me out of performing God's will. That was left up to my future wife. But even knowing that I wasn't at risk for cinematic sterilization didn't pursuade me to watch the movie. I didn't really want anything to do with Tim Robbins' silent film about mad scientists and baby murder (which is what I thought Eraserhead was).

Turns out, I was only partially right. And by "partially right," I mean "completely wrong." Eraserhead turned out to be a movie about...something. Right? Lynch deals with themes of manhood, sexuality, parenthood, social relationships, the Other, the Abject, and the Ugly (sounds like a Western), and facial growths in the entertainment industry. It's not saying much, but the narrative was much more accessible than I thought it would be.

The main character, Henry Spencer (who's played by Jack Nance (who's played by Tim Robbins)) becomes the proud single father of a young Admiral Ackbar.

Once again, film shows the horrors of pre-marital sex. Just like the Bible says, "It's a Trap!" This poofy-haired printer-on-vacation tries his very best to take care of his embalmed baby calf but after a while it just becomes too much for him. Before taking matters into his own hands, he meets a delightful ensamble of characters. One has chipmunk cheeks (most likely tumors), another has really bad acne and a fondness for staring out of windows, and this one woman who enjoys sex. Sure, they're all freaks in their own way, but I think what David Lynch is trying to say is that...oh, I have no idea. And neither do you.

Mistaken Movie Poster Actors

Ever see a movie poster and think you're looking at one actor but it turns out to be someone else. Happens to me every once in a while too. Here's a few of my best movie poster mix-ups.

Jacob's Ladder (1990)

Left underwhelmed by Fatal Attraction, I wasn't looking forward to more of Adrian Lyne's earlier work. Don't get me wrong, I have Flashdance days from time to time, but 9 1/2 Weeks and Indecent Proposal never appeared worth watching. Unfaithful is nothing short of a cinematic orgasm of genius but I had my mind made up on Jacob's Ladder. Not interested. Then I rented it. Then I watched it. Then I realized that I'm an idiot.

Tim Robbins plays a guy with a ladder. Actually, he's Jacob, a postman who used to be in 'Nam, has an ex-wife, a dead son, and likes to showers with Elizabeth Pena. That pretty much sums it up. Oh wait, he is also the sole possessor of one amazing haircut.

The narrative falls back and forth through several streams of reality. There's what seem to be Vietnam flashbacks, flashbacks with his wife and kids, and his present life with Pena. Coming home from work one night, Jacob witnesses a subway train full of faceless beings. This, combined with his wartime memories, has left the letter sorter, to use a clinical term: fucked up.

An old army buddy shows up and starts talking about these demons and that he's going to hell. This inspires an "Our Boys" reunion. The whole gang's there. Ving Rhames. Eriq La Salle. A couple of nameless white guys. Trouble is, I could have sworn most of them died in the opening scene of the movie. They start talking about government conspiracies. They start talking about demons. Jason Alexander shows up. It's a real mess.

The film's most impressive aspect are its special effects. According to the world's second most reliable information source, IMDB Trivia, all of the special effects were filmed live with no post-production. The world's most reliable information source, Wikipedia, backs this up with a description of a fast motion body horror technique. The technique results in me peeing a little out of fear. If more filmmakers had utilized this anti-CGI style, a lot less 90s films would be considered so dated today. They can't all be Jurassic Park, gentlemen.

Lyne also handles the less over-the-top tensional scenes in an equally effective manner. Tim Golden wrote in his Variety article, "Up 'Jacob's Ladder' and into the Hell of a Veteran's Psyche" about the director's ability to stay true to his own style while coming up with news ways to keep the auidence wriggling in their chairs.

"True to fans of his earlier films, Mr. Lyne remains fascinated in "Jacob's Ladder" by the lines between sex and violence, sensuality and gore, comfort and vulnerability. He looks for tension in everything from a morning shave to the way a shyster lawyer chomps his ice cubes, and his camera fixes everywhere from the spinning wheel of a hospital gurney to between the legs of a car-driving Government agent."

Jacob's Ladder really impressed me. It's diffictult to understand why more people don't talk about this film. I'd heard the title before, often grouped together with other 90s thrillers, in the same vein as Extreme Measures and Malice. Neither of those films can hold a candle to Ladder's disjointed narrative, impressive filmic techniques, and overall complexity. Has anyone seen this before? I can't be the only one impressed by Jacob's Ladder. If you've seen it, let me know what you think.


Five things I learned from Jacob's Ladder:
1. Lyne takes a little dramatic license concerning the dangers of a 106 fever.
2. Macaulay Culkin did make a pre-Home Alone film besides Uncle Buck.
3. The wonky-eyed guy is named Pruitt Taylor Vince and his wonkiness is caused by a condition called nystagmus.
4. It isn't possible to write about this movie without mentioning Elizabeth Pena dancefloor-fucking a giant devil creature complete with wings and tail to Abba's 'Voulez vous.'
5. Tropic Thunder doesn't really capture the horrors of Vietnam War the way I thought it did.