Say what you will about Michael Jackson, he certainly earned his title of The King Of Pop in the 80's. Truly, the Jackson sound defined 80's pop music. Once a member of the Jackson Five, Michael embarked on a solo career which produced hit after hit and really defined the new entertainment form of the music video (while the format went back to the dawn of the cinematic age, it really became a force in the opulent 80's). Still considered one of the best music videos ever made, THRILLER was an ambitious project directed by John Landis, co-written by Landis and Jackson. The two-reeler was a tribute to classic monster movies, which is somewhat ironic as Jackson reportedly hadn't seen all that many monster flicks. (Despite his performance here, he thought the genre too scary!)
The plot is fairly simple. We open with a sequence in which a young lady is shocked to discover her fella is a werewolf, but this turns out only to be a movie being viewed by Jackson and his girl (Playmate Ola Ray) at the theater. Despite the fact that the couple is IN the movie they're watching, she finds the picture more terrifying than enjoyable so Michael walks her home and begins singing the title tune to calm her down. Unfortunately, as they pass a cemetery, the corpses start crawling out of their graves. When they surround the couple, Michael becomes a zombie himself and leads the undead in an elaborately choreographed production number.
Running a full 14 minutes, the film is an incredible work of art. Rick Baker (no relation) provides the make-up (amusingly, within the zombie horde is a fella meant to resemble Tor Johnson). Elmer Bernstein provides the "scary" music in between the song sequences. Vincent Price provides some spooky voice over during the scene where the zombies are emerging from their graves. Co-producing with Jackson is legendary music man Quincy Jones. Forry Ackerman and Charlton Heston are visible in the theater audience. The budget for the film, that was released theatrically, was five times what the average video cost.
Reportedly, it only took four days to shoot, which is pretty impressive. Jackson proves a decent actor as well as a great singer, although at this point he's already had his nose reduced beyond the point of no return (which makes his zombie makeup effective, but I could never figure why a singer would risk his craft by having his nose operated on -not that he was the first by any means, Dean Martin had his nose reduced and obviously his voice never suffered for it). Given his later escapades, it's difficult to praise his work with such relish, but there's no denying the incredible talent on display here.
THRILLER remains one of the most popular music videos of all time, and like so many of Jackson's tunes from this period has you humming the song endlessly after hearing it.
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