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.
An astronaut brings home a glowing green orb for his daughter. However, the green orb wipes him out and corners the girl for its purposes. Claiming to embody ultimate evil, the malevolent sphere, known as the Loc-Nar, terrorizes the little girl by showing a series of bizarre and fantastic stories it has influenced. The first is "Harry Canyon", a cynical taxi driver in a squalid futuristic New York who finds himself involved with a damsel in distress who is relentlessly pursued by murderous thugs who desire the Loc-Nar her archaeologist father found. The second is "Den", which chronicles the adventures of a nerdish teenager who is thrown into the fantasy world of Neverwhere, where he is transformed into a handsome muscleman, desired by beautiful women, who must get involved in a conflict revolving around possession of the Loc-Nar. The third is "Captain Sternn", where the title character is a handsome but irredeemable scoundrel who stands accused in a trial that the Loc-Nar throws into ...Written by
Kenneth Chisholm <kchishol@home.com>
According to his creator Richard Corben, Den's name is an acronym for David Ellis Norman. In the original Den storyline, Katherine Wells is an 80-year-old woman on Earth. Regardless, Corben considered the film adaptation of his story satisfactory. In particular, he was especially pleased with John Candy's performance as the main character's voice. See more »
Goofs
In the ending credits for songwriting, Michael Moorcock's last name is misspelled as "Moorecock". This was not corrected on the Blu-ray release. See more »
Quotes
[first lines]
Narrator:
A shadow shall fall over the universe, and evil will grow in its path, and death will come from the skies.
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Crazy Credits
The rolling text of the credits stutter upwards in rhythm with the machine sound that opens the song "Working in the Coal Mine" performed by Devo. See more »
Alternate Versions
In advance work-in-progress screenings for Heavy Metal, the music for the sequence "B-17" (also known as "Gremlins") opened up with a dark and lush orchestral passage by Elmer Bernstein. But when the brilliant segment "Neverwhere Land", which was to be three minutes accompanied by a song, was decided to be deleted from the release prints and Columbia had to figure out somewhere to put this, they replaced Bernstein's opening score passage with the song. See more »
HEAVY METAL (1981) **1/2 (Voices of : John Candy, Eugene Levy, Joe Flaherty, Harold Ramis, John Vernon) {Featuring songs by : Devo, Sammy Hagar, Blue Oyster Cult, Donald Fagan, Stevie Nicks, Nazareth, Grand Funk Railroad, Journey, Cheap Trick, Black Sabbath, Don Felder, Riggs, Trust} Landmark animated adaptation of the cult magazine "Heavy Metal" is a dizzying soup of noir, science fiction, fantasy and sex vignettes all strung together by the shared element of a glowing green meteorite of pure evil called Loc-Mar {which by the way has parallels to the glowing suitcase in "Pulp Fiction" and the eerie car trunk of "Repo Man"; just food for thought} that threatens a little girl as it recalls the stories for her. Somewhat dated by today's standards but nonetheless a trippy little piece of art. It's recent release on video (1996) was held up primarily by music rights for all the songs being used; includes THX sound and an excised segment "Neverwhere Land" that was cut due to running time. Executive produced by Ivan Reitman ("Ghostbusters"). Directed by Gerald Potterton.
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HEAVY METAL (1981) **1/2 (Voices of : John Candy, Eugene Levy, Joe Flaherty, Harold Ramis, John Vernon) {Featuring songs by : Devo, Sammy Hagar, Blue Oyster Cult, Donald Fagan, Stevie Nicks, Nazareth, Grand Funk Railroad, Journey, Cheap Trick, Black Sabbath, Don Felder, Riggs, Trust} Landmark animated adaptation of the cult magazine "Heavy Metal" is a dizzying soup of noir, science fiction, fantasy and sex vignettes all strung together by the shared element of a glowing green meteorite of pure evil called Loc-Mar {which by the way has parallels to the glowing suitcase in "Pulp Fiction" and the eerie car trunk of "Repo Man"; just food for thought} that threatens a little girl as it recalls the stories for her. Somewhat dated by today's standards but nonetheless a trippy little piece of art. It's recent release on video (1996) was held up primarily by music rights for all the songs being used; includes THX sound and an excised segment "Neverwhere Land" that was cut due to running time. Executive produced by Ivan Reitman ("Ghostbusters"). Directed by Gerald Potterton.