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
Thriller (Michael Jackson album) project. Author, music critic and journalist Nelson George wrote in 2004, "It's difficult to hear the songs from "Thriller" and disengage them from the videos. For most of us the images define the songs. In fact it could be argued that Michael is the first artist of the MTV age to have an entire album so intimately connected in the public imagination with its imagery". Short films like "Thriller" largely remained unique to Jackson, while the group dance sequence in "Beat It" has been frequently imitated. The choreography in "Thriller" has become a part of global pop culture, replicated everywhere