During the five years following the release of Assault on Precinct 13, Joston appeared in three more independent films. He played Paul, the beleaguered pencil-factory clerk, in David Lynch's classic 1977 cult film, Eraserhead. According to Joston, Lynch wanted to cast him in the part after seeing one of his previous performances (though Joston did not know which one), and he contacted Joston about playing the role through a mutual friend. He worked with Carpenter again in the 1980 horror film, The Fog, playing the coroner, Dr. Phibes. Shortly afterward, Eric Red, then a young film-maker and a fan of Joston's performance in Assault on Precinct 13, cast Joston in the lead role of the world-weary hitman in Red's 1981 short film, Gunmen's Blues.