A Musical Tidbit

Last Sunday I saw Conan the Barbarian on the big screen at Chicago’s legendary Music Box Theater. Spoiler alert: it kicked so much ass. For those keeping score at home, I’ve seen Predator, The Thing, Assault on Precinct 13, RRR, All Quiet on the Western Front, and now Conan on the big screen this damn year. I’m seeing WALL-E next week, too. Sometimes I make good choices.

What I didn’t realize in advance of the Conan screening, however, was the film presentation was part of a gimmick called “Metal Movie Night,” which mashes up cult classic films with heavy metal music. These events attract an aggressively white, aggressively tattooed, and aggressively drunk crowd.

A dad sitting a few rows from me brought along his son, who appeared to be around ten years old, in what I can only describe as incredible parenting. Seeing movies with my dad was definitely the highlight of my childhood.

To kick off the proceedings the theater showed the trailer for the 1982 epic The Beastmaster. I fucking loved this movie as a kid, and I’ve probably watched it over fifty times. If you haven’t seen The Beastmaster, rectify your life choices. Note: this movie is bad, but so bad it’s awesome.

After hitting that leadoff home run, the theater played the following video of Manowar rocking out to “Hand of Doom” in Stuttgart in 2019. This is definitely not my jam, and all I could think for five straight minutes was: This many Germans chanting in unison never ends well.

Between heavy metal videos the curators then trolled us with multipleviewings of the trailer for Mazes and Monsters, a truly dreadful looking film from 1982 starring Tom Hanks. I’d never even heard of this POS, and despite the novelty factor, couldn’t possibly justify watching it.

Finally, I really dug one music video and track: “Volt Thrower” by Conan. The following video is pretty badass, and while I’m a casual heavy metal fan at best, the song grabbed me. It feels ultra-modern and from a bygone era at the same time, and was compelling enough for me to add it to my “Dad metal” playlist.

Check it out.