Beanbioca
As Good As It Gets
Sarita Rafferty
There are moments that feel comical, some horrific, and some downright inspiring but the tonal shifts hardly matter as the end results come to a film that's perfect for this time.
Kayden
This is a dark and sometimes deeply uncomfortable drama
WakenPayne
I'm not a Michael Jackson fan. I'll clear that up now, There's nothing wrong with his music and his dance moves were very good. I did think this song was okay so I'll give it credit but I will say there was a synth solo while Michael and the other zombies dance that to me just went on a bit too long. The plot is that Michael and Janet Jackson fall into the usual horror movie trope of they're in the middle of nowhere and the car's out of gas. As they're walking and talking soon Michael turns into a werecat, only to be watched in a theater by Michael and Janet Jackson. Janet leaves and Michael follows but on the way home they're intercepted by zombies, made by the awesomeness of Vincent Price monologues. They dance with Michael and Janet runs away to an abandoned house and the zombies break in like they're in Escape From New York only to find out that didn't really happen at all. This is iconic and it does start out pretty good with the verses and the Vincent Price monologue. I'll say it might go on a bit too long. It takes about 5 minutes for the video to start and even then there's more dialogue before it starts and also with the ending. I mean yes, I like the cinematography and even stuff like the set design of the graveyard is appropriately B-Movie-ish. There is a lot that this music video does right. In my personal opinion the only thing really wrong with it is that it's a little bit longer than I would've liked.
Neil Welch
I'm not a Michael Jackson fan. I like a number of the records, but the singing style he developed never did much for me, nor did the crotch-grabbing antics he came to substitute for dancing. But I don't dispute his talent, nor his ground-breaking development of dance into directions where it had never been before.And I don't dispute that Thriller is a ground-breaking short film, either. I remember the PR buzz before the first transmission in the UK (at the unsuitable time of Sunday afternoon, I seem to recall).Thriller created the long-form pop video. By dropping the song routine into the middle of a proper narrative-based short movie (beginning, middle and end, with production values, special effects et al), a new(-ish_ medium was created which shows no signs of abating.I don't want to go into details. Despite my reservations about Jackson, everything works here. It is scary, funny, the song is quirky and brilliant, and the ensemble dancing is brilliant.A terrific piece of work, for which I think Landis must be given as much credit as Jackson.
Tom May
This is a music-video turned short-film, very well directed by John Landi - using some of the same trickery and style adopted for his 1981 comedy-horror classic, "An American Werewolf in London".Beautifully shot by Robert Paynter, a veteran British cinematographer who learnt his trade photographing British Transport Films back in the 1950s; he captures some vividly dark blues, purples and reds throughout.There are film-within-a-film games going on here, plus a surprisingly overt story about burgeoning sexuality, with Jackson's girl clearly more frightened of what is potentially to come in the bedroom than what she is seeing on the cinema screen. Then the actual music part, with the werewolf Jackson leading her astray, backed up by a gang of "Dawn of the Dead" style zombies and ghouls. Vincent Price's voice-over makes a lot more sense in the context of this film than in the song as it appears on "Thriller". The film's final shot is rightly famous, and I can well imagine it scaring quite a few children. Interesting to ponder whether Jackson was entirely conscious of the sexual subtext, or not.Overall, a fine little piece of film-making to support a phenomenally successful album, which turned Jackson into a 'mega-star'. Here, he seems very much in touch with his music and with his horror lore.
Greatornot
I am not a big music video fan. I think music videos take away personal feelings about a particular song.. Any song. In other words , creative thinking goes out the window. Likewise, Personal feelings aside about MJ, toss aside. This was the best music video of alltime. Simply wonderful. It was a movie. Yes folks it was. Brilliant! You had awesome acting, awesome choreography, and awesome singing. This was spectacular. Simply a plot line of a beautiful young lady dating a man , but was he a man or something sinister. Vincent Price did his thing adding to the song and video. MJ was MJ , enough said about that. This song was to video , what Jaguars are for cars. Top of the line, PERFECTO. What was even better about this was ,that we got the real MJ without the thousand facelifts. Though ironically enough, there was more than enough makeup and costumes to go around. Folks go to Youtube. Take 14 mins. out of your life and see for yourself what a wonderful work of art this particular video really is.
