The Ultimate 80s Rock Documentary 'Heavy Metal Parking Lot' Will Never Die
We are now exactly as far removed in time from the 1986 release of Heavy Metal Parking Lot as its sleeveless truants and zebra-print daytrippers were from Elvis Presley's gyrations on The Milton Berle Show . In other words, the world's greatest 16-minute documentary about Judas Priest fandom currently stands at the precise midpoint�almost to the day�of the filmed history of rock 'n' roll. HMPL is one of the VHS era's unassailable cult classics, although it's hard to know what that term means since the creation of YouTube and the evergreen availability of nearly everything. The thrill of discovering a copy in a friend's tape collection or at a rare DC-area screening is gone. That the film continues to reward viewers in its freely available .MP4 incarnation is a testament to its weird goodness, its good weirdness, and the unscripted enthusiasm of its stars: a Chaucerian succession of hilarious caterwauling youths. It's hard to imagine a le...