A cemetery, an atomic wasteland, a chainsaw, a preacher with a bunch of mutant worshippers, it doesn’t get more 80s gothic than this.
Director Richard Stanley directed several gothic music videos but he’s best-known for his feature films, including Hardware and Dust Devil. (In many ways, the video for Preacher Man feels like a dry run for both Hardware and Dust Devil.) He was also the original director of the infamous The Island of Dr. Moreau until his conflicts with both the studios and actors Marlon Brando and Val Kilmer led to him being replaced by John Frankenheimer.
“It’s about the idiots, full of sound and fury, who stampede around this world signifying nothing. It’s about people who sing about the revolution while selling it short, about people who sing about the corrosion of things while they themselves are falling apart. People who miss the point… It’s also stupidly over-the-top bombastic, but rightly so.”
— Andrew Eldritch, on This Corrosion
Even more specifically, This Corrosion was written as a “take that” to two former members of the Sisters of Mercy who left the band in 1985 to form The Mission. Eldritch’s feeling was that The Mission was just a corrosive version of Sisters of Mercy.
Director Stuart Orme was one of the directors who worked with literally everyone. His video here is properly goth in the style of 1987.
Just try to get that chorus out of your head after listening to Nemesis. Everybody happy as the dead come home!
Director Tony can den Ende has also done music videos for The Proclaimers, Meat Loaf, Melissa Etheridge, Joe Cocker, Thomas Dolby, Manic Street Preachers, and Guns N’ Roses.
If you’re suffering from anxiety, it is nothing to be ashamed of. As today’s music video of the day shows, even Pat Benatar can get nervous! Of course, when your dentist is named Dr. Pain, who can blame you for getting nervous?
This video was directed by Mark Robinson, who also did videos for The Pretenders, Tina Turner, and Eddie Money.
How You Gonna See Me Now? is one of the songs to cite if anyone ever says that Alice Cooper was only capable of writing gimmicky songs. This is one of Alice’s best ballads, asking his former companion how she is going to see him when he returns to her life.
Of course, the video features Alice in jail and getting what appears to be electroshock therapy, in between writing a letter home to his wife. As with many of Alice Cooper’s videos, this video is memorable because of the contrast between the heartfelt and sincere lyrics and the macabre, sometimes bordering on campy imagery.
Director Bruce Gowers has also directed videos for Prince, Fleetwood Mac, Rush, Supertramp, and really just about anyone who was anybody in the 70s and 80s.
55 years ago today, The Doors Are Open aired on Granada TV in the United Kingdom. This documentary featured The Doors performing at The Roadhouse in London, along with interviews with the members of the band and also clips of the turmoil that was occurring across the world at the time. The documentary takes a look at The Doors as both musicians and activists.
Though the song’s title was taken from a 1964 B-science fiction film, the song itself was about the very real fear of nuclear war. To understand this song, it is important to remember that, in the 1980s, nuclear war was viewed as something that was destined to happen eventually. Teachers and school counselors were even specifically trained on how to talk to children who woke up one morning, saw the wrong story on the morning news, and came to school terrified that the bombs were going to drop at any moment. I guess the nearest equivalent of that today would be the fear that we only have ten years left due to climate change.
Luckily, after the collapse of the Soviet Union, it looked like nuclear war had been avoided. Over the past few years, though, I’ve seen a return of those earlier fears as more and more nations brag about developing their nuclear capabilities. As a results, songs like this will always feel more relevant than we may want them to.
In a song that was a definite change of pace from his usual work, Cliff Richard sings about how he became cursed after seeing a black cat with yellow eyes. Cliff went to a fortune teller, asking her to lift the curse but it turned out that the fortune teller was the one who cursed him in the first place!
This song was Cliff Richard’s biggest hit in the U.S. It undoubtedly helped that the song came out while America was still in the grips of Exorcist fever.
The ultimate message is that if it can happen to Cliff Richard, it can happen to anyone.
Today’s music video of the day comes from the Spanish punk rock group, The Killer Barbies. Silvia Superstar buys a comic book featuring an animated version of Dracula who starts to speak directly to her. Not coincidentally, this video was released at the same time that the band was preparing to star in a film called Killer Barbys vs. Dracula, which was directed by Jesus Franco.
(For the film, the band changed their name from the Killer Barbies to the Killer Barbys to avoid being sued by Mattel.)
This video was directed by Oliver Sommer, who is one of the busiest and most prolific music video directors out there. At this point, it would probably be easier to keep track of who, in Europe, Sommer has not worked with than with who he has.
Happy Horrothon! “I know you’re gonna say, this isn’t horror! This is Thor singing the blues!” I hear your critique and I reject it! The greatest horror stories especially in science fiction have trauma, fear, and hope. Alien, for example, terrible things happen to this crew of…. I guess…. miners, but at the end – there’s hope because Ripley overcomes. I always have a bit of anxiety at the end of the New “Outer Limits” or films like “Life” because it’s a good twist, but everyone is now dead and the heroes failed- that’s too much like life!
In “Rain”, a woman is alone and there appears to be a guy in the friendzone who REALLY wants to be with her and can sing and looks like Thor. For the interest of Horrorthon, we’re going to presume that- I don’t know this lady’s name but I’ll call her Susan- that Susan’s previous guy was eaten by a …got it…. a werewolf! Take that doubters told you I could contrive this into a horror review- BWAHAHAHA!
Side note: Susan, you’re being too picky. I’m sure that youhad a rough time, but this guy even wrote a song for you, looks like Thor, and sounds like Otis Redding reincarnated. Maybe your standards are just WAY too high?
Susan’s boyfriend was werewolf puppy chow and Thor is trying to tell her that it will be okay. He has felt her pain because there is probably at least another werewolf in town that probably ate his girlfriend too. Can you imagine that support group? They must hate Iams and Doggy costumes! The line “Is that rain or are you crying again?” gets to me because when you’re broken-hearted – it’s like the tears can’t stop. “A soul with no face is a lonely embrace” this line is all about not seeing your soulmate again- Fucking Werewolves, we gotta do something about them, but then this song wouldn’t exist; so, I’m torn!
As they try console each other, “now’s there clouds between us all”; so, they likely hooked up, but they also have to worry about the full moon coming- probably. I like that at the end of the song – he says – “You ain’t gonna be ain’t gonna be alone” and notice, he doesn’t say- With me – Wonderful me. He’s left her better off and maybe he will be alone and live out his days as a werewolf hunter?
Through the Shattered Lens