30 Years Of 'Heavy Metal Parking Lot,' The Classic 'Cult Classic' Film
October 22, 2016
Alumnus Jeff Krulki's film is still legendary.
Tom Cole | "Weekend Edition" NPR
"Thirty years ago this week, an unknown filmmaker walked into a club in Washington, D.C., with a videotape in his hand. It was one of those nights when anyone could screen their work ... but this was the first public screening of a short documentary that's gone on to become the very definition of a cult classic.
"Heavy Metal Parking Lot was only 16 and a half minutes long, and the concept was bare-bones: just fans and staff outside the Capital Centre arena in Largo, Md., before a concert by two metal bands, Dokken and Judas Priest, in May of 1986. And yet it went viral before viral was a thing: One fan would make a copy of a video and give it to a friend who would do the same thing, until it spread, literally, around the world.
"'Nobody could have imagined that it would have taken on the life that it has,' says Jeff Krulik, one of the two directors. Over the course of 30 years, he and his partner John Heyn watched their little documentary become the subject of websites, a mural, and mainstream press coverage in The New Yorker, GQ, Spin and Premiere."
Read and listen to the complete article at "Weekend Edition" NPR.