Michael Jackson: Thriller

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...