However, Ray sued Jackson on May 6, 2009, less than two months before his death on June 25. He reaches out to her but can't pull her back up and she falls. The students progressively begin to head bang to the music as a riot erupts and the kids destroy the instruments. From Michael Jackson's zombie dance in "Thriller" to Miley Cyrus' naked wrecking ball ride, certain visuals stay with the viewer long after the video has ended. The Spice Girls video for "Wannabe" is entirely one-shot and shows the girls taking over the St. Pancras Grand Hotel in London. [5], The zombie dance sequence corresponds the lyric about a masquerade ball of the dead. I don't think we had video recorder then. [8], The horror-themed "Thriller" had not been planned for release as a single. Her 10-year-old son recently learned the routines at a holiday kids' club in Turkey, reminding her of the huge impact it had on kids in the 1980s. The video for My Chemical Romance's jam featured a main character in a hospital bed who is eventually led by Death to the Black Parade. [12] Nina Blackwood, a former MTV executive, said music videos improved after Thriller, with more storylines and more intricate choreography. Ola Ray took home a lot of memories and stories from her time co-starring in Michael Jackson's landmark "Thriller" music video. [8] After originally being screened late at night in the U.S. under the ABC Wide World of Entertainment billing from 1973, some episodes were retitled for U.S. syndication in 1978, and all had additional opening sequences shot with new titles and credits but without the original cast and, for this reason, often only featuring menacing figures seen from the neck down. In one scene, Michael's right "cat's eye" contact lens is askew and not in straight. In 2013, she settled with the Jackson estate for $75,000. watch on Amazon. Tom Petty channeled "Alice in Wonderland" for the "Don't Come Around Here No More" music video. See production, box office & company info, The House with a Clock in Its Walls (2018), At the Movies: Christine/Silkwood/Sudden Impact/Thriller, Palace Theater, 630 S Broadway, Los Angeles, California, USA. In July 1983, after Thriller was displaced from the top of the chart, Jackson's manager Frank DiLeo suggested making a music video for "Thriller". The video features a ghost, tombstones rising from the ground, zombie gorillas, and pop culture references including ones to "Resident Evil" and "Braindead.". [13], Other memorable episodes include: "Someone at the Top of the Stairs", one of a handful of forays into the supernatural, in which two female students move into a boarding house and begin to notice that none of the other residents ever go out or receive any mail; and "I'm The Girl He Wants to Kill", in which a witness to a murder finds herself trapped in a deserted office block overnight with the killer, and is forced to play a deadly game of cat-and-mouse with him to survive (there is barely any dialogue throughout its second half). At the end of the credits, they all dance back into their graves, with one of them gruesomely grimacing at the screen. That's a pretty serious statement, and one that makes the silly horror movie-inspired fun to follow seem like it's going to be a lot darker and menacing than it is. [8] Landis encouraged Jackson and Ray to improvise during their scenes,[10] and urged Jackson to act "sexy" and "show virility" for his female fans. [8], Thriller was filmed at the Palace Theatre in downtown Los Angeles, the zombie sequence at the junction of Union Pacific Avenue and South Calzona Street in East Los Angeles, and the final house scene at 1345 Carroll Avenue in the Angeleno Heights neighborhood of Echo Park. 3 Take On Me A-ha. In May 2009, Ray sued Jackson, along with his production company, for breach of contract. [7], Michael Jackson's album Thriller was released in November 1982 on Epic Records and spent months at the top of the Billboard 200. Real clips from the show are also used throughout the video to make it seem like the band is actually on the show. My DS1 does sound more like the OPs, and unlike some children, he is more likely to admit to feeling upset or 08/07/2009 17:32. MTV, which, to that point, had never paid for content, contributed $250,000, and Showtime paid $300,000. Perhaps that's Thriller's ultimate legacy, and it's also why Jonze has become a key influence on film-makers creating videos for YouTube. The video was a bit controversial for its sexual visuals. Also, the group performs in water and in liquefied forms in front of a waterfall. The emotional video for "It's All Coming Back to Me Now" starts with Cline Dion's love leaving their mansion on a motorcycle in a rainstorm before dying in a fiery crash when lighting causes a tree to fall. As such, Michael Jackson's "Thriller" the narrative short horror musical video, not the song or album of the same name is ripe for mainstream theatrical adaptation. The Thriller video makes many allusions to horror films. Actually, "Thriller" is more of a short film, a nearly 14-minute horror movie about a young man who's "not like other guys" who transforms into a werewolf-like monster, terrorizes his date, and dances like a zombie while looking cool in a red leather jacket. A YouTube video of more than 1,500 prisoners performing the dance attracted 14 million views by 2010. All Rights Reserved. [8], Weeks before the premiere, Jackson, then a Jehovah's Witness, was told by the organization leaders that the film promoted demonology and that he would be excommunicated. Ending with Alice as a cake that the Mad Hatter and friends consume and a small burp from Petty is just the cherry on top. Jackson urged the Epic executives Walter Yetnikoff and Larry Stessel to help conceive a plan to return the album to the top of the charts. "It was never like some marketing thing. The video finishes with the bed being set on fire, burning the man who bid on her. Love it or hate it, labels are obsessed with it and it's here to stay. As of 2020, more than 59 million people had watched the sea of orange-clad people amble and groove like zombie-monsters. And there's some weird bugs crawling at various points. The black-and-white video features various scenes of the siblings together and alone, reacting emotionally and with anger at certain moments. Every Beyonc video deserves a spot on this list, but "Single Ladies" has a special legacy. Lesley Sharp stars as a detective who faces impossible choices in a murky world where loyalties are tested and lines are blurred. The UK version features Bush in a white dress as she dances around a dark room white white mist. I'm sure VCRs had timers even then. It got video of the year at the MTV VMAs. In 1984, Making Michael Jackson's Thriller won the Grammy Award for Best Video Album, and in a 1999 end-of-the-century countdown, MTV named "Thriller" the #1 music video of all time. However, Epic wouldn't pay for it the label spent $250,000 on the video for "Billie Jean" but made Jackson pay the $150,000 budget for "Beat It" himself. Then she wakes and crawls outside to walk along the ledge. Most clips just show him and a few others doing his signature moves like the running man and hammer dance. [8] As films required theatrical screenings to be eligible for Academy Awards, Landis had the video played before screenings of Fantasia (1940) at a Los Angeles cinema, though it was not nominated. 1 Thriller Michael Jackson 2 Bohemian Rhapsody Queen 3 Take On Me A-ha 4 My Heart Will Go On Celine Dion 5 Virtual Insanity Jamiroquai 6 Vogue Madonnna 7 Fastlove George Michael 8 Say You'll Be There Spice Girls 9 Earth Song Michael Jackson 10 Sledgehammer Peter Gabriel, Original reporting and incisive analysis, direct from the Guardian every morning. "In adolescence, youngsters begin to grow hair in unexpected places and parts of their anatomy swell and grow," Landis wrote in Monsters in Movies. The video for "Seven Nation Army" is a kaleidoscopic, trippy series of shots. During the closing credits, a reprise of the zombies dancing is shown. A defense barrister is faced with the proposition: what can you do when you have defended the indefensible? As the band and hundreds of other people are stuck in a traffic jam, the camera pans to various individuals sitting in their car with subtitles describing their thoughts. "It was really groundbreaking to have such a long video, and it helped to shape the future of music videos, which previously had been more performance-based," she says. The 13-minute film that resulted changed the music video for ever, becoming less a promo clip than a cultural phenomenon. Michael Jackson's "Thriller" clip permanently elevated the medium of music video to artistic and cinematic relevance at a time when it was still relatively new and directionless. The cat's dance moves even mirror her's. features a band called the Love Below performing on a London show as a bunch of women scream in excitement. And as later legal filings would indicate, that's about all the actress and model took home. As the song progresses, multiple Morissettes sing in the car and act as her passengers until the car runs out of gas and she has to walk. I want to do what's right. Could you want anything more in a video? When the documentary was released on VHS, selling for $29.95, it attracted more than 100,000 advance orders in its own right. They are all dressed in lingerie in a cabaret setting resembling the real Moulin Rouge. I think that video by MJ is just big, but it isn't that fantastic. Bruno Mars and Mark Ronson had a hit with "Uptown Funk," and the vibrant, simple video was the perfect fit. | "I love the ideaof making Thriller a musical," said James L. Nederlander. Marlon Brando, Fred Astaire, Rock Hudson and Jackie Kennedy Onassis all turned up on set, and Eddie Murphy, Prince and Diana. [17], On November 14, 1983, Thriller was shown to a private audience at the Crest Theater in Los Angeles. Missy Elliot is also featured in the video and song. It's hard to forget. On this Wikipedia the language links are at the top of the page across from the article title. It was in all the papers but it was quite funny how Radio 1 avoided the subject. The band is performing at a high school pep rally where cheerleaders have the circle-A anarchy symbol on their chests. ", "Thriller" hit MTV and other outlets in 1983, the same year that the risqu (for the time) Flashdance was a hit in movie theaters and made a star out of Jennifer Beals. [8] Within months, the documentary sold a million copies, making it the bestselling video release at that point. As Katy Perry makes her way through the board game world, she rescues some girls from candy-related prisons and then defeats Snoop Dogg and his gummy bear army with whipped cream. Original cast member Al Molinaro made a cameo. "I won't say that I have seen him in his birthday suit but close enough.". To be eligible for the Oscars, it needed a week-long theatrical release, so Landis arranged for it to open, bizarrely, for Disney's Fantasia at a single cinema in LA. [10] At the time, commercial directors did not direct music videos, but Landis was intrigued. All eight episodes of Prime Video's new show The Consultant made their debut last week, allowing folks to fly through the entirety of the workplace saga like the levels of an . The video was directed by John Landis, written by Landis and Jackson, and stars Jackson and Ola Ray. It's a moot point whether or not a bit of fear does them any harm in the long term. It really opened our eyes to music videos as a creative form of film-making, and a potential career." I was suing him for 14 years. In 2008 a DVD box set containing all six series was released. The "Work It" video is filled with some interesting CGI work, memorable dance moves, and some wild cameos that include Timbaland and Eve. We didn't get a Channel 4 signal until late 84 so missed out entirely! The Library of Congress described it as the most famous music video of all time, and it has been named the greatest video by various publications and readers' polls. Mumsnet carries some affiliate marketing links, so if you buy something through our posts, we may get a small share of the sale (more details here). I remember watching it on C4 late at night. [8] It was backed by successful music videos for the singles "Billie Jean" and "Beat It", which are credited for raising creative standards for music videos and demonstrating their promotional power. Landis talked Jackson out of getting a new actress by reminding him that Ray was a Playmate in Playboy, not in "Thriller." "Out of all my videos, it was the least expensive and took the least amount of time. A musical number set to "Thriller" (the song) would comprise most of the video, but it would also have a scripted drawing device. Prior to its production in 1983, music videos weren't taken seriously or considered anything more than a way to cheaply promote a single or an album. She ends up shoving him out of a car and leaving him in the dust and goes into a rebellious phase. It references numerous horror films and sees Jackson dancing with a horde of zombies. The "Ironic" video stars Morissette getting into her car at a gas station and then driving into a wintery landscape. And yet, it was something of an afterthought: the seventh single from a 10-track album that didn't have the most auspicious of starts when it was released a full year before the Thriller video (long enough for Jackson's nose to look different in the film than it does on the LP cover). Michael Jackson's Thriller is a 1983 music video for the song "Thriller" by the American singer Michael Jackson, released on December 2, 1983. But then there's also some random dance scenes with her on a boat. At Murphy's insistence, the film was played again. [28] The National Film Preservation Board coordinator, Steve Legett, said the video had been considered for induction for years, but was chosen mainly due to Jackson's death that year. Jackson's character takes his date (Ola Ray) to a horror movie and then makes her life into one when he transforms into a monstrous creature and leads a horde of other scary creatures both ghoulish and undead. When I started directing videos myself a few years later, it was like a touchpoint. "In many ways, it wasn't something you really wanted to aspire to," he says. In 1984, Making Michael Jackson's Thriller won the Grammy Award for Best Video Album, and in a 1999 end-of-the-century countdown, MTV named "Thriller" the #1 music video of all time. Director John Landis Writers John Landis Michael Jackson Stars Michael Jackson Ola Ray 7 Fastlove George Michael. ", $1.8m The amount Texan gold trader Milton Verrett paid for Jackson's red jacket from the video at auction in June 2011, 26ins The size of Jackson's waist at the time of filming, according to Landis's wife Deborah, who designed the red jacket, $1m Estimated sum in unpaid royalties for which Landis sued Jackson in 2009, 13,597 The number of people who performed the Thriller zombie dance together at an event organised by the Instituto de la Juventud del Gobierno del Distrito Federal at the Monumento a la Revolucin, Mexico City, on in August 2009, 156.4m The number of YouTube views of the official posting of the Thriller video, 9.5m Total home video and DVD sales of The Making of Michael Jackson's Thriller, The John Landis-directed mini-movie first shown publicly 30 years ago this week influenced a generation of directors including Spike Jonze, turned music promos into an industry, and established MTV as a cultural force, Original reporting and incisive analysis, direct from the Guardian every morning, Michael Jackson's impact on art explored in London show, John Landis on the making of Michael Jacksons Thriller: I was adamant he couldnt look too hideous, Quincy Jones sues Michael Jackson's estate, Who's bad? Six Girls Aloud videos later and Thriller is still part of Bellinger's life. Samuel L. Jackson in "Unbreakable." Credit: Getty Images. [12], The video doubled boosted sales of the Thriller album,[8] which sold a million copies a week following the video debut[12] and became the bestselling album of all time. The legendary video has been honored countless times. ", Only later did Landis realize that Ray was a former Playboy Playmate, which threatened her involvement in the video because Jackson thought it might come across as improper for him to be sharing the screen with a nude model. This did not stop him being threatened with expulsion from his church because of the film's subject matter. The first collaboration between Alicia Silverstone and Aerosmith featured Silverstone as a girl who catches her boyfriend cheating. Landis said he would do the video if it could be a short film, and Jackson embraced the idea. [8] According to Ray, the chemistry between them was real and they shared "intimate moments" during the shoot. And people have been copying it ever since.". This is to say nothing of the countless videos, viral and otherwise, of people re-creating the familiar "Thriller" dance moves particularly the stylized zombie movements at weddings, block parties, and Halloween celebrations. She gets a tattoo and a belly button piercing. The music video director Brian Grant credited Thriller as the turning point when music videos became a "proper industry". NCTV chairman Thomas Radecki said: "It's not hard to imagine young viewers after seeing Thriller saying, 'Gee, if Michael Jackson can terrorize his girlfriend, why can't I do it too? Additionally, Landis equates the process of man turning to beast, in "Thriller" and in other werewolf-based movies (such as the director's own An American Werewolf in London), with puberty. [4] The series evolved from Clemens' previous work, in particular two films in a similar style: And Soon the Darkness (1970) and Blind Terror (aka See No Evil, 1971); the latter shares plot similarities with the Thriller episodes "The Eyes Have It" and "The Next Voice You See". It shows Michael turning into a zombie and dancing in the street with some spectacular choreography. They walk into the forest, and Jackson asks her to be his girlfriend; she accepts. The striking video is mostly black-and-white with some of the only color provided by red flowers on the float. Then it shifts to the musicians performing on stage. I didn't have this thought intellectually at the time, but when I watch it now I realise that there's no reason for a lot of it; it's so free and loose. Jackson embraces her, but turns to the camera and grins, revealing his werecat eyes. A videocassette of "Thriller" opened the door to priced-to-own videos. So in the beginning of the video, Michael has a message stating that "Due to my strong personal convictions, I wish to stress that this film is no way endorses a belief in the occult". On June 27, 2011, the red jacket Jackson wore in this video sold for 1.8 million dollars at Julien's Auctions of Beverly Hills. In 2018, the short film was digitally remastered exclusively for IMAX 3D theaters, playing before. 2, and Madonna's Vogue at No. Throw Katy Perry and her dancers in clothing covered in sweets, dress Snoop Dogg in a cupcake suit, make the setting a board game called Candyfornia, and you've got yourself the basis of the "California Gurls" video. It's a weird video, but that's why it's unforgettable. Jackson was 25 years old at the time of filming. This article includes content provided by Spotify. According to Vanity Fair, Beals passed on the female role in the "Thriller" video, and after a lengthy search, director John Landis cast Ola Ray as the poodle-skirt-wearing young woman in the video's fake horror film as well as Michael Jackson's date who witnesses his transformation into a monster. 9 with Earth Song from his 1996 album HIStory. [30] "Thriller" has become closely associated with Halloween;[31][14] in 2016, US president Barack Obama and first lady Michelle Obama danced to the song with schoolchildren at a White House Halloween event. Narration: Darkness falls across the land / The midnight hour is close at hand / Creatures crawl in search of blood / To terrorize y'all's neighbourhood / And whosoever shall be found / Without the soul for getting down / Must stand and face the hounds of hell / And rot inside a corpse's shell. 's Bad Girls and that's got to be one of the best videos ever. Thriller is a British television series, originally broadcast in the UK from 1973 to 1976. "[8] Jackson's manager Frank DiLeo suggested making a music video for it, and recalled telling Jackson: "It's simpleall you've got to do is dance, sing, and make it scary. The band's front man lifts a bus up off a girl at some point and saves a dog from a fire. Stars Chris Pratt, Bryce Dallas Howard, Laura Dern. MTV paid $250,000 and Showtime $300,000 for the rights to the documentary, Jackson would take care of upfront costs, and the video was able to go ahead, with the label coughing up $100,000. The zombie's costumes were purchased from The Salvation Army. And yet despite all these fancy awards, "Thriller" didn't win the one prize that seemed like a lock. [12] Perhaps the most ingenious[editorializing] episode is the Dial M for Murder-style "The Double Kill", in which a man hires a hitman to kill his wife, but makes a fatal error in his otherwise meticulous planning. There's running on a moving train, there's dancing in a blue room, there's a dog chase, and a car chase. 8 Say You . When it was released on VHS in the UK, the short film was given the "15" certificate for its frightening scenes (the rating was later changed to "12" in 2018). "[8] According to Vanity Fair, Jackson preferred "benign Disney-esque fantasies where people were nice and children were safe", which ensured the video would be "creepy-comical, not genuinely terrifying". [15], Landis said directing Jackson was "like dealing with a gifted 10-year-old". [13], Jackson wanted to make a video in which he transformed into a four-legged beast, similarly to the transformation scene in An American Werewolf in London. "Music videos in the early 80s started as a little cottage industry in Britain, really," says Brian Grant, the British director who made the Private Dancer video for Tina Turner and Whitney Houston's I Wanna Dance With Somebody. Landis told The Guardian that they initially planned to make Jackson turn into a four-legged creature. I recall it was late night purely because of the content. The Untold Truth Of Michael Jackson's Thriller Video. But the camera also captures a shot of Cyrus licking a sledgehammer and riding a wrecking ball while dressed in underwear, a white tank, and boots. Miss Scarlet and The Duke, Season 1-2 | Watch Now. It may seem odd to have a cat playing her love interest as she sings about loving a guy despite their differences, yet that's the theme of the video. What's likely the most popular second-generation "Thriller" video came from an unlikely place: a prison in the Philippines. Director Spike Jonze also on this list for "Buddy Holly" is behind this truly memorable video featuring Christopher Walken dancing around a Mariott in Los Angeles. Isn't it ironic? Most of the video is a close-up shot of Sinad's face as she sings the song. Unbreakable. This brilliant video won the VMA for video of the year. He soon finds himself working as part of a trio of vets alongside Siegfried and his younger brother, Tristan. Jennifer Beals turned down an offer to play Jackson's girlfriend. [8], Initially, the television networks refused to finance the project, sharing the view that Thriller was "last year's news".