Now I know some of you might be thinking, ‘What does Michael Jackson have to do with werewolves?’ but you’d be surprised with the answer.

Starting off with the obvious, well obvious to anyone who has ever watched the video for Michael Jackson’s Thriller, the video opens with a scene that could have been taken from a number of classic werewolf movies from the 1950′s. Michael and his girl are cruising one fine night when all of a sudden the car stops in the middle of nowhere. Insisting that the car has run out of gas and that it’s not just some nefarious scheme to park and make out, Michael and his girl head down the road looking for a gas station.

While the two are walking Michael asks his girl if she would like to go steady and gives her a ring when she agrees to ‘make it official’. Of course now that they are officially going steady Michael has to reveal to his girl his deep dark secret. You see, Michael isn’t like other guys, (Shh, I know what you’re going to say.) Michael is ‘different’. His girl tries to assure him that she likes the fact that he’s not the same as other guys but that’s not exactly what Micheal means.

Michael tries to explain just how different he is to other guys but he just can’t get the words out in time. Thankfully he has the help of visual aids to get his point across as the full moon begins to rise and he begins to transform into a werewolf! There, under the full moon Michael makes the agonizing shift from man to wolf as his girl looks on in terror. With one last gasp of humanity he tells his girl to run while he finishes the transformation. Of course as soon as the transformation is complete Michael is hot on her heels and looking for a snack. Michael catches up to his girl deep in the woods and is just about to go in for the kill when…

…the scene shifts to the inside of a movie theater. Phew! It was all just a movie and Michael and his girl are safe and sound in their seats watching the film. Of course they’re not going to be safe for long considering there’s a zombie apocalypse waiting for them outside the theater but since this is Werewolves.Com and not Zombies.Com let’s just stick to the werewolf connection.

Micheal Jackson didn’t just decide that he wanted to make a music video featuring a werewolf, he went right to the man himself, John Landis to make it happen. If the name John Landis sounds familiar to you then it’s probably because Landis is the writer and director of the cult classic, An American Werewolf in London. Landis not only directed Thriller, he co-wrote it with Michael as well.

Landis isn’t the only connection to An American Werewolf in London either. If the special effects in Thriller happen to look familiar it might be because they were created by special effects master Rick Baker who was responsible for creating the werewolf transformations for An American Werewolf in London. Believe it or not there is even another connection between Thriller and An American Werewolf in London, that of composer Elmer Bernstein. Bernstein was not only the composer for the music of An American Werewolf in London but for the creepy scene music throughout Thriller as well.

So there you have it. Next time someone asks you if there is a connection between werewolves and Michael Jackson you’ll know just what to tell em.

-Chris

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Tagged: An American Werewolf in London, elmer bernstein, full moon, John Landis, michael jackson, rick baker, Thriller, werewolves.com