We continue our summer celebration of whatever zombie music we could find. Zombies in the lyrics, in the videos, in the theme… whatever. We previously made Michael Jackson, the broken man-child, a Zombie of the Week, but now we’re making the song the Zombie of the Week. So it’s completely different. Except that we’re going to use the exact same write-up (because we’re lazy).
If there’s one thing that both forgiving fans and devoted haters can agree on it’s that Michael Jackson was best dead. The music video for “Thriller” was in all ways a full theatrical production. With a running time of nearly 14 minutes, a screenplay and direction by John Landis (“The Blues Brothers”, “Animal House”, “An American Werewolf in London”) and creature effects by the legendary Rick Baker (“Star Wars”, “Men in Black”, “Hellboy”) no expense was spared. It even contained a lengthy spoken word section by horror cinema god Vincent Price.
The video was released on December 2, 1983 and quickly sold over 9 million copies (on VHS no less). It’s been entered into the National Film Registry (the first music video to be so honored) and won two Grammy’s. It’s estimated that over 4 Billion (with a “B”) people have seen the video. So whatever your opinion of Jackson and the allegations against him it’s hard to argue with the fact that he’s quite literally the most famous zombie ever.
