Heavy Metal (1981)

Heavy Metal is an anthology of seven loosely connected stories inspired by the fantasy magazine of the same name. I was too young to see the film at release, but there was a great buzz about it with the older teens. I didn’t give it much thought in the years since until my son heard about it. Damn, there was a lot of nudity.

The stories are connected by a glowing bowling ball of death. The individual stories had very different tones and animation styles because they had different writers and animators. Different enough that the narrative link occasionally seemed a bit forced. SCTV alums Joe Flaherty, John Candy, Eugene Levy, and Harold Ramis lend their vocal talents.

The story that interested my son was “Captain Sternn”, about a Zapp Brannigan type character facing a tribunal. He employs a controversial defense. Having watched it, I found it very familiar. Heavy Metal had some TV airplay early on, so I may have seen parts of it then. Music rights made it difficult to find until very recently.

More culturally influential than high cinema, but Heavy Metal did hold my interest. The opening scene with a car in space definitely influenced Musk’s Tesla in orbit, and do I even need to mention South Park? Damn, there was a lot of nudity. AMRU 3.