audience reactions to seeing eraserhead in 1977

Well, I saw it in the early '80s at a theater in San Francisco that showed 2-5 features, new stuff every day. And they picked appropriate bills, like Caveman, When Dinosaurs Walked the Earth and One Million B.C. or a set of classic film noir. Anyway, I saw Eraserhead with Repulsion--that's two different types of nightmare. Eraserhead, particularly, impressed the hell out of me as capturing the sense of a nightmare better than any other movie I've seen.

I saw it in a theatre shortly after release. Disturbing but I don't remember any plot. I notice Metacritic has mostly 100 ratings, then some 50s from haters.

Criterion HD trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J0Eq5GtCYdA

interesting!