Michael Jackson: Thriller

You can say what you'd like about Michael Jackson, but songs like ''Bad'', ''Thriller'' and ''Billie Jean'' has stunned the pop-world. But this is out of the ordinary.

It is more than a music video (I think it is the best ever), to me it is a short 14 minutes cult-classic.

Even better is the influences from George A. Romero's legendary Death-movies. How much can you say about a music video? Michael Jackson-fans have probably already seen it, but I still have got to tell them, and everyone else, about this remarkable and historic video.

More than a great video, it represents a revolution. Because each detail is just perfect, from amazing choreography to the genius of storytelling, beautiful special effects, humor and the clue and, off course, Michael Jackson himself, giving not only an unique show but a seductive acting demonstration. So, just a revolution. Changing everything in the industry of pop but, more important, in the perspective of the viewer about total show.

'Thriller' remains the greatest of the pop music promos to have a plot, great visuals, and a tip-top song to wrap the film around. Michael Jackson was at the top of the tree at this time (and not so altered in his plastic surgery regime for it to matter). Here he is in good form - the song is terrific, he leads the zombies in dance like no other.

Ola Ray plays the girl who watches with incredulity as her sweet boyfriend (Jackson, natch) turns into a werewolf! Then to the pulsing rhythms of the opening line 'It's close to midnight', he stomps around the graveyard with the other zombies and creatures of the night.

The crowning glory of all this is the fruity voice of the great horror star Vincent Price speaking in the middle of the record. Terrific.

The stars and the planets must've all been in just the proper alignment, the day that THRILLER was conceived. Michael Jackson's album was slaying the charts, John Landis still had a lot of good will built up from his genre pic "An American Werewolf In London", (not to mention his classic comedies ANIMAL HOUSE and THE BLUES BROTHERS) and choreographer Michael Peters was creating some of the most innovative and influential pieces for music videos of that period.

Not before or since has one single piece of film illuminated, exploited or underscored MJ's incredible talent or the more "otherworldly" aspects of his persona quite like THRILLER, the world's most successful (if not officially the first) long-form video, and the most fondly remembered. Also the most expensive at the time, but every penny and every bit of the talent behind its creation and execution is up there on the screen. And how would it not be complete without the "rap" from the original song, provided by the late, great Vincent Price, to add even more cache to the chills already there?

The glory days of one of the world's greatest performers have long since passed, but no one can ever take away the man's towering achievements, of which this is probably the most memorable. If you don't think so, now, remember: Halloween is coming. I won't be one bit surprised when, like other Halloweens before it going back decades, this appears on some Saturday Night Creature Feature special.

As it will next year, and the year after that...

The music video that started all music videos. The one that made history. The one that is still the best one today. The one that will live on for generations forever. Truly beyond iconic