After 40 Years, The Guys Who Made ‘Heavy Metal Parking Lot’ Are Almost Famous

Don’t tell Jeff Krulik he’s famous, especially if anybody's around.

“I’ll be with somebody and they’ll say to somebody, ‘Hey, this is the guy who made Heavy Metal Parking Lot! ” Krulik said. “And I know what’s coming next: A blank stare."

"It's humbling," said Krulik, who really is one of the guys who made Heavy Metal Parking Lot. But he is grateful for whatever renown he's gotten from the enduring, adored-by-all-who've-seen-it 1986 guerrilla documentary. It all started 40 years ago this weekend, when he and buddy (and fellow budding indie filmmaker) John Heyn showed up early to a Judas Priest show at the Capital Centre with a video camera borrowed from the local public access TV station and their eyes wide open. They rolled tape while cruising outside the Largo, Md., arena, capturing gaggles of great unwashed metalheads in their element. Period-piece characters now known by the film’s faithful fans as “Graham of Dope,” “DC101 Guy,” “Zebraman,” and “The Girl in the White Dress,” all of whom make Beavis & Butthead look preppy and lucid, spewed unscripted, unintentionally hilarious and unforgettable dirtball verse at a rat-a-tat-tat rate throughout the movie's 16 minutes. Rick Ballard, who appeared in Parking Lot as a teen Priest obsessive, then grew up to have a career in TV and run his own record label, hailed the movie in a 2016 interview as “the Citizen Kane of wasted teenage metalness.”