"Darkness falls across the land. The midnight hour is close at hand. Creatures crawl in search of blood. To terrorize y’all’s neighborhood." Vincent Price helps make Michael Jackson's Thriller one of the best horror-themed music videos of the 1980s along with director John Landis and special make-up effects designed and created by Rick Baker. Breaking out of our norm of covering horror films of the decades, for our special 2nd year anniversary episode we dive into the music videos that defined the Eighties, especially those with a tinge of horror to them. Join Dave Dreher, Christopher G. Moore, and Doc Rotten on this special visit back to when MTV played music videos 24x7 and some of them were as scary as they were awesome...well, in most cases...
Decades of Horror 1980s
Episode 135 – Horror-Themed Music Videos of the 1980s
For this episode, with the help of previous co-host and Decades of Horror co-founder Thomas Mariani, we dropped a list of 15 horror-themed music videos for the grue-believers to vote on. The top 10 of that list, we discuss on this podcast. We also present some missed classics as provided by fans of the show and some congratulations on our 2nd anniversary. Thank you all for participating and listening.
The Top 10 Horror-Themed Music Videos
- 10 Total Eclipse of the Heart by Bonnie Tyler (2/83)
- 09 Killer Klowns from Outer Space by the Dickies (88)
- 08 Bark at the Moon by Ozzy Osbourne (83)
- 07 Dancing with Myself by Billy Idol (82)
- 06 Who Made Who by AC/DC (86)
- 05 Pet Sematary by Ramones (89)
- 04 He's Back (Man Behind the Mask) by Alice Cooper (86)
- 03 Dream Warriors by Dokken (87)
- 02 Somebody's Watching Me by Rockwell (84)
- 01 Thriller by Michael Jackson (12/83)
The Ones We Missed
- Dirk Rogers: Torture by the Jackson 5, TV Dinners by ZZ Top
- Jane Smith: Too Much Blood by The Rolling Stones
- Brian Davis: Lost in the Shadows by Lou Gramm from the Lost Boys soundtrack
- John Doe: Land of Confusion by Genesis
- Sean Henry: Rob zombie's Dragula (Not the 80's but it still rocks!)
- Luis Franco: That "Somebody's Watching Me" by Rockwell scared the shit out of me as a kid. Man,I miss the 80's. The idea of a mini-movie to go with a song is a lost art. MTV is just not MTV anymore. There was 3 crazy sci-fi themed videos whose songs had nothing to with the video; Billy Ocean's "Loverboy" KC & The Sunshine Band's "Give It Up", Duran Duran's "The Wildboys".Worth watching if you've never seen any of them.
- Jerry Chandler: My Name is Norman Bates (1981) by Landscape; Pet Shop Boys: Heart (1988) if just for the sheer WTF of seeing Ian McKellen as a vampire lip syncing Pet Shop Boys; Metallica's One (1989) that's a whole different kind of horror.