Henry Spencer (Jack Nance) leads a dreary existence along with maybe all the other residents of an industrial city where it is seemingly always night time and there's always a refrigerator or two dozen humming in the distance. At dinner with his girlfriend's family, he is asked to carve a chicken (which seems to still be alive) and learns that his girlfriend, Mary X, has had his baby (though it is deformed, and maybe not even human). Henry and Mary X try to care for the child but lots of disgusting and surreal things happen both in real life and in Henry's visions and nightmares… are you getting the idea this is all about mood, and it is overwhelmingly affecting? That's a good idea.

Lynch started out studying painting at art school, and this film – his feature film debut – is steeped in the moody, non-narrative qualities of that practice. It also has the urban dread that Lynch says was a huge influence on him, living in a very run down part of Philadelphia with his wife (they were robbed twice, had windows shot out and a car stolen). This film took years to make and has been heavily praised for its elaborate sound design. The film's aesthetic – both sound direction and art direction – seems like it would have been an influence on industrial music, and its obsession with filth and bodily fluids probably influenced all sorts of grunge artists in the 90s. At the very least, The Pixies directly referenced it by covering the song In Heaven which was written specifically for Eraserhead.