3rd Textual Analysis- Thriller

With the previous two music videos, I have analysed one music video in my music genre and I have analysed the music video for the song I am doing. This analysis is on the other genre within the song I chose- horror.As my song is about zombies, I decided to analyse a horror music video.

Thriller- Michael Jackson



This music video is an interesting example, as it acts like a short film in parts of the video. The video begins as a narrative within a narrative, wherein Michael Jackson turns into a a werecat and attacks the girl, making him the antagonist in the opening narrative. Then when the characters leave the cinema, Jackson begins to sing, trying to scare the girl, talking about monsters and such.
The music also stops, allowing the narrative to continue as they are attacked by zombies. This part of the music video also establishes Jackson as the antagonist as he becomes a zombie. This is however intended to be humorous, breaking the conventions of the horror genre, as Jackson starts dancing with the zombies.
Afterwards the narrative continues until the girl is surrounded by zombies, which then turns out to be a hallucination.
The fact that the video is like a short film, telling a narrative by using the song in parts, and even the fact that it has a credits sequence is highly unusual of a music video. It breaks many conventions, as it's almost like a musical rather than just a song.

The mise en scene in this video is dark, giving connotations of fear and evil. The zombies are rotting and rise from a graveyard, giving connotations of death and unnatural forces where the zombies are concerned. This helps enforce the genre as a horror as it is a stereotypical horror setting. The costume of the zombies clearly represents what the audience expects of a zombie; rotting, decrepit, bloodied mouth, grey skinned, dirt covered worn clothing. This is something I should consider for my video. Also, to provide continuity and show the change,  when Jackson becomes a zombie, he's wearing the same clothes, only torn and worn. Furthermore, the stereotypical haunted house location is used when the girl runs away from zombified Jackson, continuing to conform to genre stereotypes. The location has connotations of creepiness, being filled with fear and gives a sense of unease for the protagonist.

The non diegetic material in the video is different, as normally a music video wouldn't have a title of the song at the start, or credits at the end of the video. However, because of the short film style the video has been made in, it also follows some conventions of short films.