General News

Enjoy David Lynch’s ERASERHEAD Midnights at The Tivoli This Weekend

By Tom Stockman | April 20, 2014

“Mother, they’re still not sure if it IS a baby.”

In the summer of ’78 I was just 16 years old. The Varsity Theater on Delmar (in the building that now houses Vintage Vinyl) was the cool theater that showed ROCKY HORROR at midnight and presented counterculture film programming, mostly for the students at nearby Washington University. BEYOND THE VALLEY OF THE DOLLS, ANDY WARHOL’S FRANKENSTEIN, HOUSE OF WAX in 3D, and NINE LIVES OF FRITZ THE CAT were a few of the many movies I saw there. That summer, they had a midnight series on Wednesday nights they called ‘Weird Wednesdays’ (I guess the weekends were strictly for ROCKY HORROR – which I only saw there once). YELLOW SUBMARINE was the only other film I remember seeing on ‘Weird Wednesdays’ though I’m sure I went a few other times. One July Wednesday night, my friends and I ventured up to the Varsity to see a new film that was part of the series – one that put the ‘Weird’ in ‘Weird Wednesday’ – it was something called ERASERHEAD.

ERASERHEAD was of course my first exposure to David Lynch and that Lynchian style. I didn’t know who Lynch was (no one did then) but I found his seminal universe of nightmarish visions remarkable and I still have the “ERASERHEAD – I SAW IT” button they handed out that night.

Seeping chickens, dancing weirdo women, dying alien baby children. ERASERHEAD was a dark, puzzling nightmare that left me so disturbed I could not think of anything else than the film for days. I had witnessed nothing quite like it – this was long before independent surreal, avant-garde films were a dime a dozen – it was a film of the future (my experience watching the recent UNDER THE SKIN reminded me a bit of the first time I saw ERASERHEAD). Make no mistake about it, David Lynch is a genius/madman (take your choice) and ERASERHEAD was his first full blown feature film. Years later I read that Lynch had personally accompanied the film city to city in 1978 for screenings, so I assumed (or, more likely, wanted to believe) that Lynch was in the audience at the Varsity that night with me. A couple of years ago I was talking to local filmmaker Roy Zurich, who was manager of the Varsity in the late ‘70s. Roy informed me that no, Lynch was not in attendance that night.

Lynch began work on ERASERHEAD when he was given a small grant by the AFI Conservatory, but the money ran out and it took him over 5 years to finish — in spurts. ERASERHEAD is certainly not for everyone…in fact, it’s not for most, however, you can surely see the singular artistic vision that is David Lynch’s — his style, pacing, use of music, visuals, are all on display. Stanley Kubrick was a huge fan of ERASERHEAD and forced the cast and crew of THE SHINING to watch it to put them in the right mood.

ERASERHEAD had an extended run at the Varsity a couple of months later and played at the Tivoli a couple of times in the ‘80s, but I never experienced it on the big screen again. If you’ve seen ERASERHEAD only on DVD, you haven’t really seen ERASERHEAD. That’s a cliché, but in this case, it’s true. Lucky St. Louisans will have the opportunity to fly to planet Lynch and see ERASERHEAD when it screens at the Tivoli in St. Louis this Friday and Saturday nights (April 25th and 26th) as part of the ‘Reel Late at the Tivoli’ midnight show.