Episode 7

Eraserhead (1977)

Published on: 2nd September, 2022

A story about parenthood, anxiety, a strange baby, and who the hell knows.

Listen in as me and new guest, Jon, stare into the magical radiator that is this film and try to divine just what is going on here.

Written and directed by seminal auteur David Lynch (Blue Velvet, Mulholland Drive), Time Out called the film "a singular work of the imagination, a harrowing, heartbreaking plunge into the darkest recesses of the soul," while the New York Times said it was "a murkily pretentious shocker." Sounds like someone at the NY Times is butthurt they didn't make a weird movie that inspired countless filmmakers...

It tells the story of Henry (Jack Nance, Twin Peaks, Blue Velvet) as he learns he has a premature (mutant) baby while his girlfriend/mother of his child Mary (Charlotte Stewart, Twin Peaks, Tremors) is constantly on edge. She leaves Henry to care for the child alone and he sees visions of a strange woman in his radiator. It gets much, much stranger from here.

The film is currently available on HBO Max, Amazon Prime, DVD and Blu-Ray.

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About the Podcast

Subversive Cinema
The show about the weird, whacky, and downright wrong entries in cinema history.
There are a lot of films out there, so it's only natural that a decent amount of strange content exists. These are the films we examine.

Each week, I sit down with a guest and we take a look a one of these weird, whacky, or downright wrong cinematic entries. Each of them has something about it that makes it special — I call it the "Subversive Sauce" — and that is recipe we try to break down.

Is it scientific? Absolutely not. Will you learn things you didn't know? Maybe. Might you hear about films worth checking out? Most definitely.

Tune in and see what the subversion is all about!
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About your host

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Art Hall

Art started in the podcasting ecosphere back in 2007 with the outrageous, yet short lived, scripted variety show "WBKR: Buckwilde Radio," which claimed listeners from over 20 different countries. After hanging up his headphones and heading west to move to Los Angeles, he kept podcasting in his heart but only made appearances rather than producing or hosting. It only took a global pandemic, boredom, and the pleading from his buddy, Joe, to get back into the mic booth.