Part of Arkadin’s Lynch @ 75 series. Purchase tickets to this and four other nights (Altered States, The Adventures of Prince Achmed, Cryptozoo, and Son of the White Mare) with our Psychedelic Passport.

David Lynch’s radical debut feature turns the mundanity of middle-class existence into a black-comic nightmare about the fear of fatherhood. Everyday items like chicken dinners, radiators, and pencil sharpeners are twisted into mysterious and malevolent omens. With its shocking images, deeply unsettling sound design, and hypnotic, dreamlike atmosphere, the film became a cult hit on the midnight-movie circuit, where it was paired with Missouri native Suzann Pitt’s gorgeously surreal animated short Asparagus, a Freudian fantasia of lush flora, phallic symbols, and sexual anxiety. Together, these low-budget labors of love (Eraserhead was five years in the making and Asparagus took four) plumb the uncanny depths of the human subconscious with a defiantly personal vision. A selection of some of Lynch’s earliest shorts rounds out the night.