Heavy Metal

Title: Heavy Metal

Director: Gerald Potterton

Released: 1981

Starring: Rodger Bumpass, John Candy, Joe Flaherty, Eugene Levy, Alice Playten, Harold Ramis, Percy Rodriguez, Richard Romanus, John Vernon

Plot: An anthology of tales adapted from the pages of the mature comic book “Heavy Metal”

Review: For those not familiar with the mature comic “Heavy Metal” it's no doubt a publication best known for its focus on fantasy and sci-fi stories which are presented with a healthy dose of nudity, violence, drugs and erotica. It’s also a comic which interestingly is also owned by Kevin Eastman who lets not forget was also responsible for giving the world the “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles”.

The film itself is a bumper collection of nine tales tied together by a mysterious green orb called the Loc-Nar which also describes itself as “the sum of all evils” and as we soon discover has been responsible for influencing societies throughout time and space while usually bringing misfortune to those who encounter it. Each story has its own distinctive style from the “Sin City” style noir of the opening story “Harry Canyon” through to the ultra violent barbarian fantasies of “Den” and “Taarna” which makes it an easy film to get into especially as if you don’t like one story its not long till you move onto a new one.

Directed by Gerald Potterton who is no doubt best known for his work as an animator on arguably the best Beatles movie “Yellow Submarine” here his style is just as experimental incorporating elements of rotoscoping aswell as a distinctive hand drawn animated style which brings to mind the work of Ralph Bakshi. More so when characters frequently can be found engaging in some form of bad or deviant including (but certainly not limited to) a pair of alien pilots snorting mile long lines of coke off the floor of their spaceship.

While the animation style might look a little more dated there is still unquestionably a charm to this hand drawn style of animation and it perfectly suits the stories being told much like the voice cast who might be surprising to see attached to this film and no doubt the result of Ivan Reitman being attached as the producer, but they all really play their roles well with John Candy’s voice work in particular really left me wishing that he had done more voice work as here he really shows a talent for it.

Adding to the action is a classic rock soundtrack which thankfully forgoes the usual obvious choices and instead gives us lesser known tracks from the likes of Cheap Trick, Grand Funk Railroad and Sammy Hagar which really is the kind of soundtrack you want when you open your film with a Corvette being driven out of a spaceship and landing on Earth by it’s astronaut driver (or should that be pilot). Still regardless of the setting of each story the soundtrack somehow works well with the onscreen action, though frustratingly one of the stories being cut due to production delays meant that we lost “Time” by Pink Floyd from the soundtrack.

It’s true that due to the voyeuristic style throughout the film which much like its source material is not something that will suit all tastes, but if you liked the brash style of “Sin City” you will no doubt find this film very much its kindred spirit. Yes it’s rude, foul mouthed and seemingly devoid of even the most base morals but at the same time it’s so much fun that it’s hard to draw too much of an issue with it’s frequently outlandish world view and for fans of adult animation, especially those who came up through the anime boom of the late 80’s and early 90’s will no doubt get a kick out this one.

A.C. Film Club #4 - Chungking Express

On this latest episode myself and Stephen (Gweilo Ramblings / Eastern Kicks) take a look at Wong Kai-Wai's "Chungking Express", a film comprised of two rather untraditional love stories as Takeshi Kaneshiro plays a cop who finds himself caught up Brigitte Lin's mysterious drug smuggler. At the same time Tony Leung (also playing a cop) who in attempting to get over the loss of his girlfriend (Valerie Chow) attracts the interest of the quirky snack bar worker Faye (Faye Wong) who has become determined to improve his situation

Music podcasts - Music podcasts -

We also share our Asian cinema shames as we take a cue from the "Cinema Shame" project and reveal the films they perhaps should have seen but for whatever reason have yet to, while also taking a look at the films of Kim Ki-duk

Further Watching

 

 

Fallen Angels
3-Iron
Samaritan Girl

A full list of films covered on the show can be found here

Chillerama

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Title: Chillerama

Director: Adam Green, Joe Lynch, Adam Rifkin, Tim Sullivan
Released: 2011
Starring: Adam Rifkin, Sarah Mutch, Owen Benjamin, Ray Wise, Eric Roberts, Miles Dougal, Lin Shaye, Sean Paul Lockhart, Anton Troy, Gabby West, Adam Robitel, Ron Jeremy, Tim Sullivan, Thomas C. Colby-Dog, Joel David Moore, Kristina Klebe, Kane Hodder, Jim Ward, Richard Riehle, Corey Jones, Kaili Thorne, Brendan McCreary, Ward Roberts

Plot: It’s the closing night of the last drive-in theatre in America and owner Cecil B. Kaufman has decided to go out with a bang by holding a marathon of cinematic trash for his faithful cinephile patrons. Unknown to them though is the fact that one of the staff has contracted a zombie virus through some ill-advised necrophilia, ensuring this is going to be nothing short of a memorable closing night.

Review: While many may have hailed Eli Roth as the saviour of the horror genre, a title which he has sadly failed to live up to, especially considering how he is more concerned with taking on producing duties these days than sitting in the directors chair, as only further highlighted by the gap between “Hostel 2” and the forthcoming “The Green Inferno”. Infact if anyone could be branded as a saviour for the genre, I would personally venture that it would have to be Adam Green, whom since unleashing “Hatchet” has only feverishly continued to add to the genre, as he followed it up with not only a sequel to this debut, but also the critically acclaimed “Frozen” which showed that he was more than another splatter director.More surprisingly though he has also givin us the horror version of “The Big Bang Theory” with “Holliston” which he also stars in with fellow horror director and best friend Joe Lynch, who unsurprisingly is also on hand to direct a segment here.

Now the unholy twosome join forces with Adam Rifkin and Tim Sullivan to create this horror comedy anthology, an idea originally devised by Rifkin and Sullivan as a weekly show for MTV, only for it to fall through due to the increased popularity in reality shows. Now recruiting Green and Lynch to their cause it finally makes it to the screen in movie form and I was eager to see how it stood up alongside the classic Anthologies which came before it like “Tales From The Darkside” and “Creepshow”, aswell as the knowing nods to B-movie culture much like we saw with the criminally separated “Grindhouse” whose double feature format failed to make it out of the States as it was released internationally as two separate films.

Comprised of four films with each director getting their own chance to craft their own vision, as they give us here

• Wadzilla (directed by Adam Rifkin) – A monster sized man eating sperm goes on a rampage through New York.

• I Was a Teenage Werebear (directed by Tim Sullivan) – The sole musical entry in the film, set in 1962 were Ricky (Lockheart) a closet gay discovers a mysterious gang, who also happen to turn into leather daddy werebears when aroused.

• The Diary of Anne Frankenstein (directed by Adam Green) – The secret attempt by Hitler (Moore) to create the perfect killing machine to help turn the tide of the war, while in turn giving the world his Jewish Frankenstein Meshugannah (Hodder) 

• Zom-B-Movie (directed by Joe Lynch) – The main meat of the film, which is intercut with the other films, as sex crazed zombies invade the drive through while ensuring the film end with a suitably splatter soaked finale

As you can see it is a real mixed bag on offer here in terms of style and ideas, yet all keep within the general theme the film shows….one that it would seem drenched in bodily fluids and gore, served up with a heavy dose of warped humour, which is not a bad thing and certainly gives the bad taste aficionados plenty to enjoy. The downside though is that like “Four Rooms” the level of talent on offer here is varying to say the least, resulting in a film which is frequently uneven in places as the standard shifts from piece to piece with Green and Lynch easily having the stronger segments, with their experience of working in the genre really coming into play, with Lynch’s “Zom-B-Movie” throwing out cheeky nods to the zombie genre left, right and centre while seemingly also attempting to top the splatter finale of Peter Jackson’s legendry “Braindead” while at the same giving it a sex comedy style twist which has to be seen to be believed. Meanwhile Green’s twist on Frankenstein is so over the top that despite the high potential to cause offence by poking fun at what could essentially be volatile subject matter, is quickly put to rest by the ever increasing levels of randomness, which has a real Mel Brooks feel to it as the film self acknowledges its own stupidity, even having cast step outside of the sets and actors suddenly being replaced by questionable looking dummies.

Sadly were the film hits a major bump is with “I Was A Teenage Werebear” which attempts to give us “Grease” via the way of “The Rocky Horror Picture Show”, which is a dangerous idea to begin with when you consider that even Richard O’Brian couldn’t create a sequel to beat his creation, so it is essentially destinted to fail from the start as any number of tepid stage versions trying to capture the magic of the film have only further proven. The main problem here is not so much with the plot, which embraces carefree gay love, aswell as the confusion for a young man still forced to live in the closet, all great themes to see being used and obviously ideas close to the heart of the segments director seeing how Sullivan himself is openly gay (and rather keen to drop this fact in for any promotional material for the film). What lets this segment down is instead the weak collection of forgettable songs being warbled by the cast. None of these song I have to confess would have me rushing to buy the soundtrack, which has been optimistically released alongside the film, while Sullivan has also hinted at a full length stage version, something else that I’m not exactly on tender hooks to see, especially as this segment is only just bearable, thanks to some over the top and frequently original splatter.

One thing which stuck with me about this film though is the continuous obsession with bodily fluids, as the film seems to take any opportunity to ensure that all feature in some form or another with “Wadzilla” with its giant sperm and tidal wave cum shots ensuring that it comes off like a more light hearted version of the body shocker “Bad Biology”. Still the bad taste aficionados amongst you will no doubt appreciate the sheer effort which has been put into this film to ensure that they are all covered for your viewing pleasure, which includes a scatological themed “Deathication”. Thankfully its not a theme which overshadows the whole film, but one which certainly crops up enough to be noticeable.

While the segments might vary greatly in quality and style, the strength of “The Diary of Anne Frankenstein” and “Zom-B-Movie” prove to be more than enough to cover for the weaker parts of the film. At the same time while watching this I couldn’t help but feel that I was missing the audience element which no doubt has made this such a popular film on the horror festival circuit and as such I would recommend watching this with a group of like-minded friends to get the full effect intended.