Heavy Metal Parking Lot
I hope you’ve found a way to figure out how to manage and express your emotions during this global crisis. This week’s offerings share a common theme of outrageousness. Nothing is sacred, and all emotional responses can be useful in figuring out the absolute moral truth of yourself (or as I call it, Mulholland Drive Syndrome). Check out this week's recommendations, along with links to trailers, below. Stay safe if you can, and visit past issues for more recommendations of what to stream: March 26, April 2, April 9, April 16, April 23, April 30, May 7, May 14.
Heavy Metal Parking Lot on Amazon Prime
One of the most essential and beloved documents of suburban ’80s culture, Heavy Metal Parking Lot is a slice of life in the Landover, Md., Capital Centre parking lot before a 1986 Judas Priest concert. It’s a portrait of humanity that never fails to entertain, to endear and to induce cringe. This is the joy of metal, and hedonism, and the power of power chords, and it has rightfully become immortal. It’s also a trenchant illumination of Reagan-era white America that provokes necessary questions for the viewer watching with a critical eye. It’s the sound of addled youth communing with their pleasure centers underneath the yoke of the daily fear of nuclear annihilation. It’s also a testament to Rob Halford’s power as a (then-closeted) icon who moved hearts and bodies in the midst of the AIDS pandemic, during which the emotionally lazy ignored an entire community to death with homophobia. Heavy Metal Parking Lot is all of that, but it’s also a great deal of fun, and if you haven’t found some kind of fashion inspiration — whether a do or a don’t — by the time it winds up, then as your film-critic abstract friend, I’m concerned.
Blood Quantum
Blood Quantum on Shudder
There’s a worldwide outbreak of degenerative zombiism, and the only place where civilization is entrenched and resistance against the shredding, flesh-eating menace is holding is in a Mi’kmaq reservation in Canada. Something about the genetic markers in this plague have left First Nations peoples immune to this bite-borne pathogen, and so hordes of rampaging white zombies are out to destroy and consume everything. Director Jeff Barnaby made the singular Rhymes for Young Ghouls back in 2013, and he has a gift for artfully visceral mayhem as well as expressing the social history of indigenous people in a way that feels like an exposé and an exorcism at the same time. If at times Blood Quantum slips into nihilistic Walking Dead-adjacent territory, it remains an essential horror film that gives the viewer unexplored angles on a scenario we think has been done to death. The first half-hour of this film is close to perfect, and it serves up gore and bleak atmosphere with style and verve. This was one of the secret surprises at the Belcourt’s 12 Hours of Terror overnight horror marathon in October, and it knocked the theater on its emotional ass.
Darktown Strutters on Amazon Prime
Darktown Strutters is a legendary blaxploitation sci-fi musical allegory that deserves all the trigger warnings and content warnings despite having a playful and sweet spirit at its depraved core (and a 1975 PG rating, which can mean absolutely anything). The fact that this movie is even available to stream is staggering. Syreena (Trina Parks), leader of a Frazetta-ish motorcycle gang, is out to rescue her mother Cinderella (Frances E. Nealy) from a deranged and racist fast-food entrepreneur and his plantation fantasies. Along the way, there are pie fights with the police, car chases with the KKK, funk throwdowns, imprisoned R&B groups, a science-fiction conspiracy and amazing outfits that will inspire your deepest sartorial dreams. Darktown is for anyone who saw Blazing Saddles and thought, “Are there any other movies that do this?” With Frankie Crocker, The Dramatics and Dick Miller!
Petey Wheatstraw, the Devil’s Son-in-Law
Petey Wheatstraw, the Devil’s Son-in-Law on Fandor/Tubi
The cinematic legacy of Rudy Ray Moore is thankfully within reach for pandemic-era streaming culture. The original Dolemite endures as a testament to persistence and recognizing an unfulfilled audience, but sometimes it’s OK to want a little more from the films you enjoy when it comes to narrative intricacy. The end result can often be something like Petey Wheatstraw, the Devil’s Son-in-Law. A riff on the story of Faust that also at times feels like a takedown of “The Devil Went Down to Georgia,” this film finds our murdered protagonist Petey pledging to wed the devil’s daughter in order to avenge himself (and the massacre of his funeral party) with the power of Satan’s pimp cane. There’s an army of kung fu demons, children in crisis, a punishing audition sequence and surrealist exercises of supernatural power. It’s pretty awesome. And if you haven’t seen Dolemite Is My Name on Netflix, then you really should.
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