40 YEARS OF THE "THRILLER" MOVIE

As far as Michael Jackson was concerned, he didn’t make videos—he made short films. Each of these clips demonstrated the same artistry and attention to detail that characterized his music. The short film for "Thriller,” released on Dec. 2, 1983, is perhaps the quintessential example–a freaky, cinematic marvel that continues to echo through the corridors of popular culture.

By the end of 1983, Jackson’s short films for “Billie Jean” and “Beat It” had helped shift Jackson’s image from precocious pop kid to innovative adult artist. More importantly, with MTV in its infancy, he helped add more credibility to the fledgling 24-hour music video channel, helped break its color barrier and took dance in a startling new direction.

Jackson wanted to make another short film for “Thriller’s” spooky title track, the seventh and final single from the project, anticipating that it would extend the album’s already stunning chart reign. CBS (then parent of his label, Epic) refused to finance the ambitious project, with the album already exceeding sales expectations.

Contributing his own money as funding, Jackson teamed up with director John Landis to craft a musical short film that would stand head-and-shoulders above all others. Landis, known for his films like The Blues Brothers, Animal House, and Trading Places, caught Jackson’s attention with his horror-comedy mashup An American Werewolf in London.

With a successful feature-length filmmaker in Landis and Oscar-winning make-up artist Rick Baker (who’d overseen the striking lycanthropic transformations of American Werewolf) , Jackson was able to approach “Thriller” like a Hollywood undertaking. MTV promoted the short film as a “World Premiere” to feed anticipation for the TV audience. It worked.

Following the premiere, the “Thriller” short film became a phenomenon within a phenomenon. Not only did “Thriller” the single shoot into the Top 10, but it returned the album to #1.

In order to help secure funding, Landis and his team came up with the ingenious idea to also film the behind the scene footage and package it for straight to VHS distribution. The Making of Thriller helped ignite the home-video VHS market in the country.

In those 14 mesmerizing minutes, Landis crafted a narrative in which horror and dance collided in perfect harmony. The moonlit escapade of Jackson and his entourage through the fog-laden streets was a danse macabre. From the graveyard choreography to the infectious synchrony of the zombie dance, "Thriller" was a choreographic revolution, birthing moves that would shamble and stomp over dance floors for generations.

Jackson was not concerned about the unprecedented length of the “Thriller” clip. As he explained in a 1999 interview with MTV, the quality of the work would carry it through. “I knew if we did something with substance and content, that people would watch,” he said.

In its own way, the clip was also a social catalyst. In a time when music genres were firmly segmented by race, Jackson's diverse cast of dancers broke through barriers, proving that art could be a unifying force.

As the years have rolled on, the influence of "Thriller" has only continued, seeping into the very fabric of contemporary music and dance. Artists like Beyoncé, Lady Gaga, and Bruno Mars, among others, have paid homage to Jackson's legacy, borrowing from the visual and rhythmic lexicon he pioneered. Most of the ambitious videos that have followed owe it some kind of debt. And 40 years on, it is arguably the dominant example of a song’s visual counterpart—a true monster of the form.