Half elephant half man? It could only be David Lynch!

Rating: 10/10 (19 December 2009)

Aside from what is generally considered Lynch's masterpiece 'DUNE' (the scene where Baron Harkonnen pulls out that ginger lad's buttplug and he bleeds to death had me wrapped in bad dreams for months!) this is my second favourite of his films just behind Mullholland Drive and neck and neck with Scanners. I always wonder when i'm watching a David Lynch film, "Where does he get all his incredible ideas from?" and my friend Carlton Jackson said that he only eats cheese all the time. Apparently he actually has a sculptor living with him who sculpts various cheeses into the shapes of other foods, and then another artist meticulously paints the cheese sculptures with edible paint, so they look like other foods but taste like cheese. My friend Carlton Jackson also said that David Lynch is a real prankster and has lots of things made of cheese that look like other things that he gives as gifts to his friends. Apparently he bought a new house for a friend of his years ago and his friend didn't realise but thought the house smelled a bit whiffy, and then when it came to summertime the house started sweating really badly and he woke up in the night and his house had literally melted around him and he had to be pulled out of a four foot thick layer of cheese by the local firemen, and Lynch was there laughing like the devil and took a polaroid photograph of his friend and slapped his knee, and said, "I got you real good Charlie boy!" But apparently the gag kind of backfired because his friend had been cocooned in the cheese all night and so much of it seeped into his system that it went straight to his brain and his friend has since been trapped in a perpetual nightmare state and cries all the time. My friend Carlton Jackson said that Lynch made a movie about it called The Straight Story but i haven't seen that so i can't comment on it. So to get back to the point i think the cheese helps Lynch's imagination a lorra lorra lot. I first saw this film at an arty cinema in Nottingham and i thought i wasn't going to enjoy it when i realised it was in black and white, but as soon as Elephantman came onto the screen i knew it was going to be a blast. There is a lot of intentional humour in the film, like the way Elephantman talks, and Pauline Quirke and Dexter Fletcher are in it so it definitely is a comedy movie, but i don't think the audience picked up on the comic elements of the film because no one in the cinema was laughing like i was, (i was actually rudely told to shut up or get out at one point) but i enjoyed it a great deal. I didn't think Elephantman should have died at the end, i thought that put a bit of a downer on the film, but it is a David Lynch movie so i guess you're supposed to expectly unexpected. My friend Carlton Jackson said there is a deleted scene from the film where you see Elephantman's mum having sex with the elephant but it was cut from the final edit because a lot of people were being sick on their popcorn when they saw it. Overall i give this film 6 out of ten because the special effects weren't very good, you could tell Elephantman was made on a computer sometimes and at one point you can definitely see it was John Hurt under the mask, so i would give this film about 5 out of 10. If you like this movie i recommend you see the film Mask with Eric Stoltz (Which is pretty much the same but in colour) or The Mask which is a Jim Carrey film.