Product Details

• Directors: Jeff Krulik, John Heyn
• Format: Color, DVD, NTSC
• Language: English (Stereo)
• Region: Region 1 (U.S. and Canada only. Read more about DVD formats.)
  
• Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1
• Number of discs: 1
• Rating: NR (Not Rated)
• Studio: Film Baby
• DVD Release Date: October 30, 2007
• Run Time: 17 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (22 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B000HT384Y
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #42,183 in Movies & TV (See Bestsellers in Movies & TV)
• For more information about "Heavy Metal Parking Lot" visit the Internet Movie Database (IMDb)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

Dude. Or let's put it another way: Duuuuuuuude!!!! The much-dubbed VHS sensation Heavy Metal Parking Lot has made it to DVD. In 1986 indie filmmakers John Heyn and Jeff Krulik wandered around a Maryland sports arena parking lot with a video camera, seeking to capture footage of Judas Priest fans in their native habitat. Among their muscle cars and between sips of Budweiser (in a just world, Anheuser Busch would have underwritten this documentary), the feather-haired followers of Priest put on a show rivaling any entertainment occurring inside the stadium that night. Bellowing and proselytizing their enthusiasm for all things related to leather-clad men with guitars, these fans are easy to laugh at for their drunken cluelessness, but are equally endearing for the way they represent rabid fandom in general. The DVD comes with spin-off parking lot documentaries featuring equally enthusiastic fans--of Neil Diamond and Harry Potter--and a "dub-o-vision" cut of the documentary replicating the experience of watching a 10th generation VHS copy. How metal is that? --Ryan Boudinot

Product Description

Studio: Wea-des Moines Video Release Date: 10/30/2007

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

23 of 26 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars This is for you!!, June 1, 2001

By	"idvego" (Alabama) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Heavy Metal Parking Lot [VHS] (VHS Tape)

This is by far the greatest 15 minutes ever compiled onto one tape. When I listen to Judas Priest, I imagine myself cutting class, driving in an El Camino with my friend "Trip," complaining about our parents and teachers. This video turns fantasy into reality. If you ever were a burnout Priest fan, this is for you. If you ever wanted to be a burnout Priest fan, this is for you. If you just like lauging at burnout Priest fans, this is for you. If you simply like to laugh, this is for you. I cannot imagine a single open-minded person not enjoying this beautiful film.

14 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Funny as hell!, January 8, 2001

By	"blag" (Vancouver, BC Canada) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Heavy Metal Parking Lot [VHS] (VHS Tape)

My sister just got me this for Christmas, no doubt because I was an 80's headbanger. This short tape is simply some videotape taken in a parking lot before a Judas Priest concert in 1986 in Maryland. This is so funny because it shows what metal fans were like back then. These fans are particularly redneck, drunk, stoned and scuzzy. Anyone who is or used to like heavy metal in the 80's should get this. I'd like to know what happened to some of these people - my guess is most of them are dead!

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars +1/2 -- Stretching 15 Minutes of Fame, Literally, May 26, 2008

By	hyperbolium (Earth, USA) - See all my reviews (TOP 50 REVIEWER)

While this is a fascinating flashback to the mid-80s, its scant 15 minutes provide only the briefest peek, and the then-neophyte filmmakers seem to have lucked into their best footage, rather than actually having created it. Their film (originally shot on video for broadcast on a local cable access channel) captures some terrific archetypes, but never draws out their subjects beyond surface level exclamations. Maybe that's all there was to capture, which would say something in itself, but it's hard to believe there wasn't a story behind each of the heavy metal fans at which the camera was pointed.

The DVD reissue fleshes out the original 15 minutes with many extras, including outtakes from the original shoot, the filmmakers' sequels, Monster Truck Parking Lot and Neil Diamond Parking Lot (neither of whose subjects have the juice of the original), contemporary interviews with several of the original film's metalheads, a tour through a long time metal fan's basement, and a video document of a disastrous screening at a club. The extras, particularly the contemporary interviews and basement tour, provide the heft the original film needs to translate to DVD.

It's easy to see why the original documentary has such ardent fans: it's a one-of-a-kind document that could only have been created on the fly. Traded as a video bootleg or viewed on the Internet, this would be properly framed as an illicit peek at an otherwise unseen subculture. But on DVD its length and depth (or lack of both) are disappointing; still, better 15 minutes of fame than none at all. 3-1/2 stars, if allowed fractional ratings. [©2008 hyperbolium dot com]