Heavy Metal Parking Lot

Jeff Krulik is the king of independent filmmaking in DC. "Heavy Metal Parking Lot" displays all his talent and charms: he actually seems to enjoy learning about and interacting with the subjects of his movies, while also reveling in how bizarre they are. A great way to spend a half hour, and a nice trip down memory lane for those of us unfortunate enough to remember all those hair bands.

Well, Judas Priest *still* rules, long as they don't retire (though even then they can rule in perpetuity for another decade or so), so that's a given, I suppose.

But what about what this represents? This is like getting a time capsule or an anthropology class; having gone to some metal shows over the year (and, in the interest of full disclosure, Priest played with Ozzfest in 2004 and arguably did better than actual reunited Black Sabbath at the concert, if just by a smidgen, but I digress), this is fairly accurate. Of course for this time and place it's young people getting f****d up before going in to see their favorite band (and Dokken, lol, Dream Warriors man!), but that's what's compelling about it: it's honest, and that's what matters.

There's nothing else to it except that this filmmaker wanted to see what it was like in a parking lot before a metal concert. Of course it can't be helped that they all react like animals to the camera being there - hey, it's time for a concert, let's have fun - but the energy is certainly different than in the days of Woodstock or Altamont, where people didn't pay the camera too much mind unless if someone actually asked the hippies a question. For these "old-school" metal-heads who love Priest and Metallica and Scorpions and Ozzy (though one guy snorts that "he's gotten chubby!") it's all about showing the PRIEST RULES state of being for the cameras.

You won't exactly get a ton of insight into the culture at large - Spheeris' Decline II: the Metal Years is the place for that as it's a feature - but it's a nifty little 16 minutes that is kind of funny for how passionate these guys and ladies are (sometimes it's hard to tell them apart due to the hair!) and there are little moments that stand out like when a girl says she's 13 (is she really, who knows, who would lie about something like that), or when one of the token Hispanic metal-heads chugs down some whiskey. Metal time!

I think when I say this is anthropology it's that the filmmaker isn't showing us anything that's other than seeing a culture in its natural state of being or habitat: metal-heads are to this parking lot what the earliest homo sapiens were to a cave as they prepared their fire and had their women and Quest for Fire days. One might think it's almost cheesy to see by today's standards of audiences (i.e. Slayer or on the opposite end those EDM shows where people completely zonk out on ecstasy), but there's now a charm to it seeing this 30 years later, back when it was thought that metal was brainwashing young people's minds or even doing things like bringing them to violence.

Are these metal-heads animated? Oh sure. May they be missing some brain cells? Possibly, or they will be more-so by the time they've gone and done their two hours of head-banging and whiskey swigging (or, if you're a groupie, screw Glen Tipton apparently). But they're ultimately, in the vision of this director, harmless. What a... nice trip down memory lane this will be for people of this time and age.

Jeff Krulik's "Heavy Metal Parking Lot" is a documentary about an assortment of people gathering for a Judas Priest concert. Lemme tell you, these people are REALLY into the music. I was only a baby at the time that the documentary got made, so I missed this whole era (just as I missed disco, the hippie movement, and doo-wop). Nonetheless, I can say without a doubt that this is some fun stuff. Even if one considers the music corny, the fact remains that it was real music (by contrast, Justin Bieber's "music" is just corporate stuff).

I don't know how available the documentary is on video, but it's available on YouTube.

When I read about this flick, it intrigued me as a heavy metal fan, and as a short and indie film fan.

Unfortunately, it isn't exactly the laugh a minute I expected it to be.

It runs for 18 minutes, a lot of which is "montage" shots. The actual interviews are quite amusing if only for the clothing, hair and language.

Possibly the funniest thing is the people saying "Metallica are the best metal band"... funny because Metallica aren't a metal band any more.

Keep an eye out for a Nigel Tufnel lookalike dressed in a zebra body suit, with a distaste for punk and Madonna.

The film was shot at the now defunct Capital Centre in Landover, Maryland. This was the former home of the Bullets (now Wizards) and Capitals. It was torn down around 2002 and replaced with a shopping mall. When it opened, the Captial Centre was a state of the art facility - by the time the movie was made, it was THE place to see major acts (as well as stuff like pro wrestling and monster truck rallies) in the metro DC area. Heavy Metal Parking Lot is a great movie both for metal fans and for those of us who grew up in the DC area during the 80's.