Heavy Metal (1981)

Reel Deep Dive has previously held discussions about how adolescent male power fantasies are transferred to celluloid, but Heavy Metal ranks among the most transparent and shameless attempts to graft a 14-year-old-boy's desires to a feature film. An animated sci-fi/fantasy anthology film based on the popular comics magazine, Heavy Metal is crammed to the gills with superfluous nudity, buckets of gore, psychedelic visuals, and late 70's dad rock. Ryan is joined by Rachel, who hadn't seen the film or even heard of it prior to watching it for this episode. She's a bit shaken by the experience when the recording begins, but there's still plenty of back and forth when it's time to discuss the movie's rushed production, sophomoric depiction of sexuality, inconsistent approach to its framing device, and strained efforts to borrow the visual aesthetics of Moebius without directly crediting his influence. Ryan and Rachel also take a moment to talk about how the film has a gorgeous score that it probably doesn't deserve (Elmer Bernstein's lovely use of the ondes Martenot is given special notice). While noting the film's ample use of large, gravity-defying boobs, Rachel points out that this film needed lots more floppy penises and also touches upon robot horniness. Ryan is too ashamed of himself to reveal any of his own fetishes, but he mangles plenty of French words in his overlong summary of how French comics influenced the creation of Heavy Metal.