Heavy Metal
1981, R, 90 min.
D: Gerald Potterton; with the voices of Roger Bumpass, Jackie Burroughs, John Candy, Joe Flaherty.

Back from the dead, this landmark 1981 animated adult film may have been the first R-Rated film I ever saw, but it’s also a genuinely outrageous and occasionally brilliant coupling of American animation and classic early-Eighties heavy metal (does anybody even remember Riggs and Trust?). It features five separate stories by then-underground artists such as Richard Corben, Dan O’Bannon, and Berni Wrightson taking place in five different universes simultaneously with a thundering soundtrack (digitally re-mastered for this re-release) and visuals that inspired everything from Akira to Blade Runner.

This article appears in March 8 • 1996 (Cover).

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