John Landis (pictured in 2005) directed the video. Dendle wrote that the video captures the feelings of claustrophobia and helplessness essential to zombie films. According to Peter Dendle, the zombie invasion sequence was inspired by Night of the Living Dead (1968).
Jackson's make-up casts "a ghostly pallor" over his skin and emphasizes the outline of his skull, an allusion to the mask from The Phantom of the Opera (1925). The zombie dance sequence corresponds a song lyric about a masquerade ball of the dead. Critic Kobena Mercer found similarities to the werewolf in The Company of Wolves (1984). The metamorphosis of the polite "boy next door" into a werecat has been interpreted as a depiction of male sexuality, depicted as naturally bestial, predatory, and aggressive. The opening scene parodies 1950s B-movies, with Jackson and Ray dressed as 1950s teenagers. The Thriller video makes many allusions to horror films. Michael embraces her as he offers to walk her home, but looks over his shoulder and grins, revealing his werecat eyes.
She screams and wakes up, realizing it was a nightmare. Michael and the zombies chase his girlfriend into an abandoned house. The couple are surrounded and Michael becomes a zombie. They pass a graveyard, where zombies rise from their graves. In the street, Michael teases her by performing the verses of " Thriller". In the present, Michael and his girlfriend are watching the werecat film in a theater. He warns her that he is "not like other guys", transforms into a werecat and attacks her. They walk into the forest and Michael asks her to be his girlfriend. In the 1950s, Michael Jackson and a young woman ( Ola Ray) run out of gas while driving in a wooded area. In 2009, it became the first music video inducted into the National Film Registry, as "culturally, historically or aesthetically significant". The Library of Congress described it as the most famous music video of all time, and it has been named the greatest video by various publications and readers' polls. Fans worldwide re-enact its zombie dance and it remains popular on YouTube. Many elements of Michael Jackson's Thriller have had a lasting impact on popular culture, such as the zombie dance and Jackson's red jacket, designed by Landis's wife Deborah Nadoolman. The success transformed Jackson into a dominant force in global pop culture. It is credited for transforming music videos into a serious art form, breaking down racial barriers in popular entertainment and popularizing the making-of documentary format. It doubled sales of Thriller, helping it become the best-selling album in history, and sold over a million copies on VHS, becoming the best-selling videotape at the time.
Michael Jackson's Thriller was launched to great anticipation and played regularly on MTV. A making-of documentary, Making Michael Jackson's Thriller, was produced to sell to television networks.
It was filmed at various locations in Los Angeles, including the Palace Theater. The pair conceived a short film with a budget much larger than previous music videos. Jackson hired Landis after seeing his 1981 film An American Werewolf in London. In July 1983, after Thriller was displaced from the top of the chart, Jackson's manager Frank DiLeo suggested making a music video for "Thriller". Jackson's sixth album, Thriller, was released in November 1982 and spent months at the top of the Billboard 200, backed by successful videos for the singles " Billie Jean" and " Beat It". It references numerous horror films and sees Jackson dancing with a horde of zombies. The video was directed by John Landis, written by Landis and Jackson, and stars Jackson and Ola Ray. Michael Jackson's Thriller is a 1983 music video for the song " Thriller" by the American singer Michael Jackson, released on 2 December 1983.