X
- 1981
- R
- Columbia Pictures
- 1 h 26 m
- 1981
- R
- Columbia Pictures
- 1 h 26 m
Summary A glowing green orb - which embodies ultimate evil - terrorizes a young girl with an anthology of bizarre and fantastic stories of dark fantasy, eroticism and horror.
- 1981
- R
- Columbia Pictures
- 1 h 26 m
- 1981
- R
- Columbia Pictures
- 1 h 26 m
Heavy Metal
51
6.9
Where to Watch
Summary A glowing green orb - which embodies ultimate evil - terrorizes a young girl with an anthology of bizarre and fantastic stories of dark fantasy, eroticism and horror.
Where to Watch
Top Cast
Metascore
Mixed or Average
Based on 13 Critic Reviews
51
38% Positive
5 Reviews
5 Reviews
23% Mixed
3 Reviews
3 Reviews
38% Negative
5 Reviews
5 Reviews
Metascore
Mixed or Average
Based on 13 Critic Reviews
51
38% Positive
5 Reviews
5 Reviews
23% Mixed
3 Reviews
3 Reviews
38% Negative
5 Reviews
5 Reviews
A genuinely outrageous and occasionally brilliant coupling of American animation and classic early-Eighties heavy metal (does anybody even remember Riggs and Trust?).
That it is a cartoon that takes kids right out of the equation is the best recommendation of all.
User Score
Generally Favorable
Based on 15 User Ratings
6.9
67% Positive
10 Ratings
10 Ratings
20% Mixed
3 Ratings
3 Ratings
13% Negative
2 Ratings
2 Ratings
User Score
Generally Favorable
Based on 15 User Ratings
6.9
67% Positive
10 Ratings
10 Ratings
20% Mixed
3 Ratings
3 Ratings
13% Negative
2 Ratings
2 Ratings
Stoner movie gold. A superb oddity, mobius animation, john candy, black sabbath
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I find it funny that people are either offended by the childishness of the film or only know of it because of South Park. The Movie has a long rich history being bazed on the Magazine that provided a platform for comicbook artists in both Americas and Europe that doesn't fall into DC/Dark Horse/Marvel. People attack the movie as perverted and immature, but guess what that's what Heavy Metal Magazine was made for, Teenagers! It's a coming of age for boys and probably girls too, which is why it doesn't take sexuality seriously as who did when they were 16? Most don't even know who they are at that point. Sex, Violence and cool Magic and Scifi mixed together helps brings the emotions out. It's amazing if you like this stuff, so yeah this movie was not made for a general audience, it was made for fans of the comics. The humor is very funny and the movie has many laugh out loud moments. Keeping in tradition with the magazine it takes the names from the movie is divided into several really unrelated parts, there is a red thread keeping the movie together which is probably for the best since its a movie and not a magazine, sort of like Pulp Fiction. The soundtrack really makes the movie as with a limited budget it's very hard to get quality animation, that being said even with choppy low framerate the artwork is very good and animation is decent even if it is on par with filmation saturday morning cartoon shows, it makes up for it with the mentioned sountrack and beautiful artwork and other cool effects. You can definitely made for watching while high on drugs, but even without drugs if you're fan of the Heavy Metal Magazine it's a very good movie.
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The film never transcends the racist, sexist, neofascist implications of its base material, but it works entertainingly within them, and even manages a bit of auto-analysis in John Candy's ironic, adolescent narration of the "Den" episode. Better than it had to be, for which some honor is due.
The movie, like the magazine, contains a mixture of inspired graphics and hollow content. [10 Aug 1981]
Heavy Metal is the bummer version of "Star Wars," an expression of adolescent revenge against the world. What gives the movie its thoroughly unpleasant integrity is the suspicion it arouses that the guys who dreamed this stuff up mean business. If only they'd saved it for their shrinks. [10 Aug 1981, p.69]
Fantasies that are gratuitously sexist and Fascist (macho whoring and warmongering), and whose roots reach all the way back to post-hippie paranoia, feed the tangled plot-lines of a movie that, given the orchestral overkill and surprisingly low profile of heavy metal music, should disappoint even the teenage wet-dreamers it's aimed at.
Heavy Metal is one of the worst ideas ever to be translated into a movie. [8 Aug 1981, p.C10]
+Inspired art and story direction
+Superb soundtrack throughout
+Great variety of stories
-/+Provocative female characters throughout
Wasn't sure what this film would be about, its like my teenage boy brain mixed with untethered-provocative fantasy sci fi and culture pulp. I loved it! Certainly much of the animation and character designs dont exactly hold up well in 2023, but the conceptual essence of what the production team did here is still very good. What I found most fascinating is how much of other material I saw in this movie...Fith element...thundercats...conan the barbarian...dungeons and dragons....panzer dragoon.... and a multitude of others.
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I give this movie a 5, cus i didnt hate it, but it was kinda crap and childish, it could of been heaps better if more effort was put into writing it or if the person writing it wasn't a loser, there is alot of unnecessary perverted sex **** and drug **** put in seemingly just for that sake of it which made me think that disgusting, perverted, scummy type people(hollywood) produced this, i would never watch this film again, it had like a couple of cool scenes and visuals, like the b-52 plane scene was sick and a scene where they use psychedelic moving oil for the horizon as a car or some**** is speeding in the foreground is cool, but apart from that and a couple other visuals its very mediocre, if ur interested watch it on ur own, but i wouldn't subject someone to this crap who didn't specifically want to see this film
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Chaotic. This cartoon is a green ball. The creators had fun as they could when they created this cartoon. I give points for this.
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Awards
Genie Awards
• 3 Wins & 3 Nominations
SESC Film Festival, Brazil
• 1 Win & 1 Nomination
Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror Films, USA
• 1 Nomination