Michael Jackson In Thriller
Halloween’s on us once again, and the evening wouldn’t be complete without some accompanying music. So, to mark the occasion, we racked our brains and found the scariest music videos we could.
Then we had too many nightmares, so we found some that just fitted the ‘spooky’ tag and plumbed for those instead.
30 Seconds To Mars – The Kill
Now it’s hard to imagine Jared Leto being scary (even with this amount of eye-liner on), but the diminutive singer does his absolute best in this love-letter to The Shining.
Seeing the four guys in an otherwise empty hotel with ghostly visions and going on it’s a video not so much influenced by Kubrick’s masterpiece, but downright obsessed with it, even featuring sudden time cards to the lone typewriter.
While it may not be outright scary, the sheer care and attention taken to mimic The Shining brings back memories of Jack Nicholson and his axe.
Aphex Twin – Come To Daddy
Here’s a tip, don’t watch this video after dark unless you’ve got a blanket and a stiff drink waiting for you afterwards.
Featuring a giant, pale, demonic creature terrifying a little old lady and horrifically faced children causing chaos on the residents of an estate, Come To Daddy starts off as wrong and ends simply nightmarishly.
We’ll never quite be able to unsee those children with their twisted versions of Richard James’ face.
The only music video to be voted as one of Channel 4’s 100 Greatest Scary Moments, Come To Daddy is easily the single most terrifying music video that we dare to watch.
Chris Brown – Wall To Wall
While the scariest thing about Chris Brown might be his continued career and public acceptance, this vampirically themed pre-curser thread a much better line throughout the macabre.
Coming towards the beginning of his career (when he was still wearing baseball caps and trainers) dancing his way around the vampire world.
Why vampires? we don’t know, it’s mainly just a conceit that lets Chris get away with some wire-work and some blinged up fangs, but it’s got all the feeling of a Halloween video about.
Kid Cudi – No One Believes Me
Ok, so he’s got more than a little bit of a head start with it being the theme song from last year’s Fight Night, but even with that in mind, the video would get on the list.
With Kid himself starring as one of the neighbourhood vampires, it sees him skulking around what might be the seediest suburb around, before letting himself in to house for a midnight snack.
With more than just a drop of blood (more like a couple of pints), the video fits the billing, with the dark, ominous track the perfect acompaniment.
Backstreet Boys – Everybody (Backstreets Back)
With more cobwebs and costumes than all but the very best haunted houses, this is an absolute hoot of a music video, featuring each of the fives fellas dressing up as a different movie monster. Be it Nick as a mummy or Brian as a werewolf, the whole video is a brilliantly campy salute to the season of ghosts and ghouls.
The most amazing thing about the video was that the band’s label didn’t even think it was a good idea to go down the horror route, with the band member’s famously having to front their own cash to get the video made. They made the executives blush, as it’s to this day the most iconic video of the band’s entire career.
Michael Jackson – Thriller
We all knew it had to be here people. This is a music video that not only directly influenced two of our other entries but also had a massive impact on the music video as a whole.
To getting Jon Landis to direct it to making it nearly three times the length of the song, the video was unlike anything else out there at the time, costing around $500,000 to produce and even being shown in cinemas, something that’s yet to be done again (although the rise of music TV channels and the web has stopped any notion of that).
Weaving a mini-movie around the song, the video had Michael Jackson becoming both a werewolf and the world’s best choreographed zombie to terrify his girlfriend (and just about everyone in the audience) all in time to the greatest Halloween song of all time.
It’s not just the best Halloween music video, it may just be the greatest music video ever. Put it this way, do any other music videos have people putting on makeup and re-enacting them nearly two decades after they came out? Didn’t think so.
FemaleFirst Cameron Smith