Retro Movie Adventures: Eraserhead (1977)

The best part about it is that it all makes perfect sense.

Mrs. X, Mary X, and Henry Spencer in Eraserhead.
The tiny cooked chicken from Eraserhead, colored bright blue on a red and yellow background.

This feels like a different movie every time I see it. I don’t mean “Golly, I just figured out a new interpretation”; I mean like they keep shooting other scenes and sneaking them into the film.

Also: Alamo Drafthouse played a clip of Lynch before the film where he said that no one else interpreted the film the way he did, which means all non-Lynch interpretations are equally valid. Personally, I think it’s the origin of Pencilhead from Mystery Men.

Doug Jones as Pencilhead in Mystery Men. His costume is yellow with white trunks and cardboard cylindrical hat.
Doug Jones’ finest role. Way better than when he was Fishboy.

I had a hard time finding a tangentially related poster to parody for this. The end result doesn’t look much like the original, and the original is hardly iconic. I’d be surprised if you can figure it out without looking at the alternate text.

A poster for Eraserhead based VERY loosely on the poster for Eraser. You know, that Arnold Schwarzenegger movie. The one with Vanessa Williams? SO iconic.

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