I was born in 1983, so I was basically a newborn when the craze that was “Thriller” stormed the world and changed the face of music permanently. Every music video since “Thriller” has tried to top Michael Jackson. And they have all failed. However, as I grew up during some of the eighties and the nineties, I do have three very fond memories concerning “Thriller.”My older cousin’s room was located at the end of his house’s hall, and on the front of his door, he had a humongous poster of “Thriller” with Michael Jackson and the entire horde of zombies around him.
I must have passed that thing at least a thousand times. At such a young age, the poster seemed humongous to me, and considering I was absolutely petrified by anything involving zombies until I was a teenager, the poster kept me from going back and forth through my cousin’s house. Especially during sleep over’s. I remember those zombies peering back at me, mocking me with that brilliant Rick Baker make up, every time I passed by it.
My mom had a VHS tape of “Thriller” that was spliced with the final scene of the mobster comedy “Johnny Dangerously.” So, for a very long time, if you wanted to see “Thriller,” you’d have to sit through the final scene of “Johnny Dangerously” which would then immediately cut to the opening title of “Thriller.” Sans the credits to the former movie. It’s how I watched the video for years. Or whenever I built up the guts to sit through the entirety of “Thriller,” mind you.
Thirdly, for a long time my uncle would placate my brother and I by allowing us to watch his VHS of “The Making of Thriller.” Don’t ask me why, but my brother and I watched the making of “Thriller” about five times a week. To this day, even he’s not sure why we loved watching the making of the music video so much. The entire production just slips the veil off of the illusion, and yet we just enjoyed it. And I don’t know many kids that love to watch how movies and music videos were made.
Nevertheless, “Thriller” has had a profound effect on my life as a movie lover, and a music lover. Throughout my childhood I was a humongous Michael Jackson fanatic, and I loved horror movies, so John Landis’ “Thriller” took two of the best worlds and brought it together for an amazing music video and short film. I’m not a fan of using the word “amazing,” but I’m willing to testify that “Thriller” was, and continues to be the most amazing music video I’ve ever seen. Before he became the fodder for comedy and mockery, Michael Jackson was an immense force of nature, and his fan base consisted of kids who loved every bit of music he offered them.
There’s also the horror pedigree to help Jackson make an impression on my beloved genre. The immortal Vincent Price’s rap is awe inspiring, John Landis is an excellent director, Elmer Bernstein’s score is incredible, Rick Baker is my favorite make up artist of all time, and the song Thriller is absolutely incomparable. It not only works within the context of the music video, but it’s a catchy song you can dance to, at parties. It received a mild resurgence back in the early aughts thanks to a really cute dance number during the Jennifer Garner comedy “13 Going on 30,” but mostly it’s a mythic music video that’s turned thirty years old, and shows no sign of aging.
The music video itself is very eighties, with Jackon’s outfit, and Ola Ray’s jeri curl, but damn it, it’s a brilliant music video with a fantastic story. Why did the zombies rise? Who cares? We don’t really have to have everything explained to us during horror movies. Some mystery is fun. The production and script for “Thriller” is so tight and expertly crafted, the audience never once tries to figure out why the zombies rose from their graves. I like to think “Thriller” is a movie, within a movie, within a movie.
The characters in the werewolf film aren’t characters until we realize they’re just a movie. Even in peril, they’re oblivious to the idea of being characters in this movie about a teenage werewolf. The characters in the theater watching the werewolf film, are themselves trying to shed the scares of the horror film they’d seen, unaware they, too, are actually characters in a horror movie we’re watching. They never acknowledge it, nor are aware of it, but it’s made clear once the couple breeze past the foggy moon soaked cemetery and all hell breaks loose.
Much like the prologue, Jackson relishes in scaring his date, the couple walk home on foot, side by side after a date, past a horrific setting, and end up embroiled in the middle of a terrifying scenario. In the end, Ola Ray flees for her life from a monstrous boyfriend, much as she did in the prologue, and it cuts away as she’s about to be slaughtered, in to a new setting. Only in the end, does Michael Jackson look to the screen, making it clear that the nightmare is almost never ending for this unfortunate couple. Ola Ray is perhaps doomed to be the perpetual final girl, while Michael is the consistent predator who has to continue hunting her. It’s reminiscent of the ending to “Invaders from Mars.”
There’s nothing wrong with “Thriller,” and that’s coming from someone who is almost never satisfied. Even with horror classics. “Thriller” has old school nods, with contemporary funk, and manages to bring horror and music together in ways we haven’t seen in years. Vincent Price’s rap over the rising of the dead is enormous, and Rick Baker’s zombie make up is incredible. The rising of the corpses from their graves is a mind-blowing sequence that has never been duplicated properly. Even the best zombie films have never shown such an atmospheric and spooky look at the dead shambling out of mausoleum’s and sliding out of their tombs. And noticing zombies sliding out of manholes made me wary of sewers for many years.
“Thriller” is not so much a music video as it is an experience you can appreciate as a movie lover, a horror fan, and a music fan. It appeals to such a broad audience, but never alienates fans of horror movies, zombie movies, and hip hop. Surely, zombies dancing in sync may seem silly, but somehow “Thriller” makes it compelling. Thirty years later, “Thriller” just never loses its ability to stun audiences, and help us re-live a time where horror movies scared us, and Michael Jackson was a man so powerful he could even rally the walking dead behind him.