Michael Jackson: Thriller

I grew up watching this music video (I taped it on Beta tape when I was a kid back in 1983) and the making of it as well. I have always loved it, and I still do. As far as I'm concerned, it is the best and most classic music video ever made. Not really worth buying being that it's so short, but if you come across it on one of MTV's Top so-and-so of all time countdowns, definitely record it. It's close to miiiidnight...

Michael Jackson is amazing. This short film displays the absolute highest standard in music video and no-one will ever be able to out-beat this 'King Of Pop' masterpiece! It shows Michael turning into a zombie and dancing in the street with some spectacular choreography. The story is great, the scenes are marvelous, the music is fantastic and overall the clip is fun, eye-popping, spooky and is a real spectacle. Today everybody is still doing the same thing in music video with dancing and film-based story-lines which he innovated. This ground-breaking video is the toast of MTV and will forever be remembered for what is the greatest music video of all time!!

John Landis truly outdid himself when he directed Michael Jackson's THRILLER as a short film. Of course, it's corny, the dialogue is terrible and it all seems way too cheesy, but it's perfect none-the-less.

Michael and his date are out at the cinema to view the latest horror flick. When it all gets a little too graphic for the date, she leaves. Michael follows. On the way home, they decide to take a shortcut through the local graveyard. There, it begins.

The actual thriller dance is amazing. It's full of those trademark Jackson moves, as well as some memorable zombie moves, too. It doesn't appear rushed at all, nor too long. The whole thing seems movie-like and it really is actually rather scary. Of course, it's one of the most famous music videos of all time, and is probably the greatest music video ever made as well.

Overall: Watch it, seriously. Those 13 minutes will be some of the best ever spent staring at a screen. (5/5)

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