Heavy Metal
Back when I was a kid, I remember my parents getting a movie called Heavy Metal on VHS. I can remember the shiny metallic box it came in, as well as the awesome cover (painted by Chris Achilléos) that it had. I asked my mom about it and she told me that I couldn’t watch it, that I wouldn’t like it…or something. I didn’t really think that much of it, but every time I went to look for a movie to watch, the metallic VHS box would always catch my eye. I got a bit older and one day while the folks were out, I popped that sucker in the VHS player and got to watching…and realized why my mom told me not to watch it.
The first thing I noticed when watching it was the killer classic rock soundtrack that was blasting through the speaker, and then the animation began. The animation was a bit strange to me, but I guess that’s because it was first released in 1981. I stuck through it and was kind of getting into the story…the violence that was happening in it didn’t really bother me, and then bam…nudity. I was like 10 years old watching this movie…haha.
As I am getting older I am realizing how awesome Heavy Metal is, I didn’t really understand it when I was a kid. Finding out that someone like Ivan Reitman (he directed Ghostbusters) and all these famous actors and rock bands had a part in this film makes it even more awesome. You can’t really go wrong with Sci-Fi, hot chicks and a heavy metal soundtrack. Having it be animated might make it seem a bit juvenile (and it is), but who cars. The film speak to me even more, now that I can appreciate the art behind it.
The movie eventually led me to becoming familiar with the magazine years later. The magazine is what inspired the movie, and is jam packed with a lot of my favorite artists. People like Simon Bisley, Boris Vallejo and even H.R. Giger have all produced work for the magazine. Now the magazine is owned by Kevin Eastman (one of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles creators) and it’s still pumping out monthly issues. Hevay Metal has even published one of my all-time favorite books, TMNT Artobiography, Maybe one day I’ll be able to get to do a cover for the magazine.
I guess they are going to make a new version of the Heavy Metal movie, and are actually working on it right now. Yeah, there was a sequel, Heavy Metal 2000, released a decade ago, but it kind of sucked. The only thing good that came out of the movie was a video game, and even that wasn’t all that great. This new movie is going to have some big names behind it like David Fincher, James Cameron and Zack Snyder, and I’m pretty stoked about that.