Michael Ochs Archives/Moviepix/Getty ImagesImagine a movie that borders on animated pornography and gonzo horror. Now imagine this movie has some decent sci-fi concepts, a plot that makes zero sense, features ‘80s comedy legend John Candy in multiple voice roles, and was produced by future Ghostbusters maestro Ivan Reitman. That film is Heavy Metal, a sci-fi anthology animated film which hit theaters on August 7, 1981. From an awesome soundtrack to arresting, and sometimes, disturbing imagery, Heavy Metal occupies a strange place in sci-fi cinema history, neither a hidden gem nor something that can be entirely dismissed as complete trash, simply because there’s nothing quite like it.So, 45 years later, does this cult film hold up? The answer isn’t entirely clear, and it all depends on your patience for a genre of sci-fi and fantasy that essentially doesn’t exist anymore — likely with good reason. Why does Heavy Metal even exist at all?Michael Ochs Archives/Moviepix/Getty ImagesFor those not born in the 1980s or 1970s, the existence of Heavy Metal may seem baffling. Why would a mainstream movie, with folks we now consider mainstream stars (the aforementioned John Candy, Harold Ramis, Eugene Levy and Rodger Bumpass), even exist, considering it's a borderline X-rated cartoon? The short answer is that Heavy Metal was an attempt to turn the magazine of the same name into a film experience. Based on the French comic/magazine Métal Hurlant, Heavy Metal launched in 1977, just a few months before Star Wars hit theaters. In its pages, edgy artists like Mœbius and Jean-Claude Forest collided with writers like Harlan Ellison and Robert Silverberg to produce dark sci-fi and fantasy tales that, by nature, were uncensored in the extreme. At the time, there was an anything-goes approach to the magazine’s editorial policies, which is what the 1981 anthology film attempted to replicate. So how did the film approach that task? Essentially, nine disparate stories are loosely connected to tell the story of the eventual defeat of an immortal evil called Loc-Nar. The most famous imagery from the film, including its arresting poster — featuring a female warrior barbarian riding a winged creature — comes from the short “Taarna.” This fantasy story features Taarna defeating the Loc-Nar with a magical sword, after a ton of torture and adversity. Though credited to writers Daniel Goldberg and Len Blum, the inspiration for this story comes from a Mœbius comic called Arzach, so, like the magazine from which it came, the most important story in Heavy Metal is mediated through several layers of artistic inspiration. Does that result in something that is good today? Well...Does Heavy Metal hold up?A scene from Heavy Metal. | Columbia/Kobal/ShutterstockAfter a 1960 Corvette is dropped from a space shuttle, Heavy Metal reveals that the astronaut in said sports car is carrying a strange suitcase, which eventually is revealed to be Loc-Nar. But let’s pause on this Corvette-in-space thing. The idea of a sports car traveling through space, with hard rock music playing, feels painfully 1980s today, and the kind of thing that probably belongs in an early MTV video rather than the opening of a movie.And yet. In 2009, the J.J. Abrams Star Trek movie famously featured a red 1965 Corvette being driven by a space hero, before he goes on to defeat some space evil later in life. (Weirder still: the opening of Heavy Metal features a young girl's father dying, though she later becomes the space hero of the whole story.) In 2018, Elon Musk’s SpaceX famously (or infamously) launched a red Tesla roadster into space, which basically made the opening of Heavy Metal into something closer to reality. Are these connections meaningful? Perhaps not. But Heavy Metal does represent a historical moment of fantasy/sci-fi and space enthusiasm in which that interest and enthusiasm is presented as badass, rather than dorky. While franchises like Star Wars and Indiana Jones took a nostalgic, pulp look at adventure, Heavy Metal was trying to assert that the future of these nerdy things was hardcore and cool.Today, some of that posturing feels a little immature at best, and uncomfortably offensive at worst. And yet, it’s probably better that we live in a universe where Heavy Metal exists, rather than one that it doesn’t. For better or worse, Heavy Metal represents a brazen attempt at a kind of genre storytelling that hadn’t yet hit the mainstream. And 45 years later, it’s fun to revisit this film, if only to glimpse a strange, rebellious work of art, warts and all.Heavy Metal streams on Tubi.