It’s a frequent and overused descriptive flourish to suggest you were “scarred for life” by a bit of pop culture, but I have the rare honor of asserting that I was literally scarred for life as a result of my viewing of “Heavy Metal: The Motion Picture.”
Released 38 years ago today, the movie was already the subject of much discussion for the 13-year-old me and my friends, at the time. It being “rated R,” it was uncertain whether we’d be able to attend, but our collective suspicion was that it was unlikely. That didn’t stop each of us from snapping up the official soundtrack, a sprawling double-LP with a lovingly illustrated gatefold sleeve, featuring great tracks by Black Sabbath, Blue Oyster Cult, Cheap Trick, Devo, French metal band Trust and …. err….some not-quite-as-great stuff by Sammy Hagar, Don Felder (he of the Eagles), Journey and a few others. Still, it being the seemingly perfect marriage of loud rock’n’roll, science fiction bullshit and soft-core sexytime, it seemed like everything we’d have ever wanted to see wrapped up in one package. We simply HAD TO FIND A WAY!!!
In this capacity, fate deceptively smiled on myself and my good friend Charlie. Somehow, we managed to coerce Charlie’s mom to take us. I don’t remember if she was unaware of the film’s rating, or blithely oblivious about the film’s alleged undercurrent of libidinous titilaton or if she simply didn’t care, but she said she’d take us. That’s all that mattered.
We were out in Long Island, at the time. Charlie’s mom had to go drop off his little sister at a playdate, after which time she was going to swing back home, pick us up and take us to the movie. Suffice to say, we were AMPED UP!
I believe we were repeatedly cranking “The Mob Rules” from the afore-cited soundtrack at neighbor-worrying volume. I was standing on Charlie’s bed, emphatically air-guitaring with Tony Iommi’s signature riffage on same (which I spoke about way back here). We were seriously ready for this movie.
From below, we heard Charlie’s mom’s car pull into the driveway. It was officially GO TIME! I litearlly leapt off of Charlie’s bed, aiming for a nearby chair. The plan -– such as it was – was to vault from bed to chair and then out the door. That was my plan. In retrospect, it was an ill-considered one.
As it happened, the chair was a folding chair. Upon landing on said piece of unfortunate furniture, it did just that -– folded, significantly altering my already-not-entirely-well-conceived trajectory. I ended up slamming my head -– or, more precisely, my FACE -- against the side of a nearby suitcase.
Instantly, there seemed to be blood everywhere.
Charlie’s mom rushed in and started talking about taking me to the hospital, but –- even in my bloodied shock -– I was adamant. "WE ARE GOING TO 'HEAVY METAL'!!!!"
Quite unbelievably, in retrospect, I managed to make a convincing argument. Charie’s mom put one of those flimsy butterfly bandaids over the gash below my mouth, tenuously closing the NEW HOLE IN MY HEAD, and …. took us to the movie.
Charlie and I sat in one of the front rows of the Hampton Arts theatre in Westhampton Beach, bug-eyed with excitement. I remember tasting lots of blood mixed in with my popcorn.
And, ….that was basically that. As far as Charlie and I were concerned -– we had WON! We got to see the movie that none of our other friends had managed to. And we thought it was awesome.
Time, as it is known to do, passed.
For one reason or another –- presumably due to the complexities of music licensing -– “Heavy Metal” was glacially slow to ever arrive on VHS.
There was no official release for years. Tied up, for some reason -– of prurience? Taste? Pending litigation? -– one was not able to view it outside of grainy, distorted bootleg copies. I did not lay eyes on the film again for well over a decade.
Then, at some point in 1996, the movie was finally released on VHS and DVD. In the ensuing years, the scar left by my heroically stupid pre-movie stunt essentially became part of my permanent physiognomy. As such, I figured I should own the film, right?
So I bought it, took it home, unwrapped it, opened up a beer, and sat down to watch the thing for the first time since that fateful summer afternoon in 1981.
Lemme tell ya ….
It’s basically crap.
While my evidently easily-impressed 13-year-old mind might have been blown by the dazzling visuals, allegedly lifelike animation and sensory-engulfing experience of the original 1981 film, the scarred and cynical 29-year-old me was not quite as wowwed. If anything, I was wowed by how lame it was. The animation was fairly rote, the writing was trite, the plot was wafer-thin, the perceived risque elements were juvenile and insipid and the overall execution was essentially unexceptional. And for this, I wear a scar.
So, yeah, not everything ages like wine.
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