Thriller (song) adapted by director John Landis into a highly successful music video, known independently as "Michael Jackson's Thriller". At fourteen minutes, the video is substantially longer than the song and ties together a narrative featuring Jackson and actress Ola Ray in a setting heavily inspired by horror films of the 1950s. In the video's most iconic scene, Jackson leads other actors costumed as zombies in a choreographed dance routine. Though it garnered some criticism for its occult theme and violent imagery, the video was immediately popular and received high critical acclaim, being nominated for six MTV Video Music Awards in 1984
Michael Jackson's Thriller (music video) begins the video.Jackson created the zombie dance with choreographer Michael Peters, who had previously choreographed the "Beat It" video. Jackson said his first concern was to create a zombie dance that did not seem comical. He and Peters imagined how the zombies would move by making faces in the mirror, incorporating "jazzy" moves, "not too much ballet or whatever". Landis's wife Deborah Nadoolman, who had previously designed costumes for films, designed the costumes, including Jackson's red jacket. Nadoolman had previously served as a costume designer for the film "Raiders of the Lost Ark" (1981), designing the jacket and fedora worn