Heavy Metal (1981)

 ☆ ☆ ☆ ½

Heavy Metal (1981) – G. Potterton et al.

When this was released, I was 14 and perhaps just the right age for its adolescent fantasy/sci-fi sex & violence cocktail.  But seeing it now, on the verge of its 40^th anniversary, was still something of a pleasure, notwithstanding its undeniably sexist pubescent wet dream fodder. “I’m not bad, I’m just drawn that way” was the line from another movie.  But seriously, this is R-rated animation that reminded me of Philip K. Dick or Neuromancer or Beastmaster or Dungeons & Dragons.  All the stories (there are 6 or 7) are drawn from the pages of Heavy Metal magazine and held together by a connecting “plot” about an evil green orb.  The music here isn’t exactly what I think of as heavy metal (Black Sabbath and Blue Oyster Cult aside) and this would be much better rescored with some stoner rock, methinks.  So, don’t come for the music because perhaps surprisingly it isn’t the main game.  Another surprise was that the film’s voice cast is drawn from the ranks of SCTV (John Candy, Eugene Levy, Harold Ramis, Joe Flaherty, etc.) – but it isn’t mostly comedy (although there is some and some things are clearly tongue in cheek).  Instead, this is for animation geeks circa 1981 with some really great images and direction (and no doubt for teenage stoners as well).