Happy 31 days of Halloween!
This year, we’re celebrating with a different movie pick each day that made us audibly gasp, “WHAT THE FUCK?!“
Well, well, well…what do we have here? Why, a worm baby, of course. Have you seen David Lynch’s 1977 Eraserhead? Do you want to see Eraserhead? I remember doing my best to have everyone I know see the glory that is the worm baby in this film. I did not understand this movie one iota when I was a child. As an adult, I think I understand this movie. Maybe?
Henry Spencer (John/Jack Nance) is doing his best to survive this industrial environment, his girlfriend, and his “mutant” newborn. The baby looks like a worm. What the fuck is this? Could it be a calf fetus with rabbit parts? I do not care what it is; it is nightmare fuel.
In all seriousness, I may not view the Eraserhead in as harsh a tone as the actor himself, who played Henry Spencer. He stated that it was just a movie, and “he didn’t care to think too deeply about it”. I had my own interpretation, even as a child. I always just felt that it represented the fears of parenthood. The number of nightmares I’ve had about motherhood is innumerable. Kind of simple, not too deep for me. But all the fear is there.
Henry exists in a volatile environment. His girlfriend, his life, the baby that won’t stop crying. I thought he was just seeing the baby as an “other.” It was as if this child wasn’t human, or his, and he sought to separate himself from it as much as possible. And your anxieties, your fears, others can sense that. This tightly swaddled infant and Henry, it was 100% pure concentrated stress. I guess I would have to say I thought deeply about it. Bizarre, bleak, and finally just plain old, what the fuck material.
