Unspeakable Horror!

Here is the short film "Ghosts" from Michael Jackson and Stan Winston.  It is broken into four windows.  Below the windows, you will find my blog/essay on the short film (previously posted).  Enjoy.

I first fell in love with the horror genre when Michael Jackson's Thriller was released.  I loved the werewolf transformation, the zombie dance, the freaky "rap" by Vincent Price, and most of all -- the surprise ending.  In 2005, I presented a paper on Thriller at a conference.  It was a "queer reading" of the video/short film.  While I was researching for the paper, I tried to find a copy of "Ghosts," another horror-themed short film from Michael Jackson.  I couldn't find a copy anywhere,  so I had to proceed without it.  

I'm happy to say that "Ghosts" is now available through the wonder of Youtube.com.  Like "Thriller," "Ghosts" also contains many interesting alignments between the monstrous and the social alienation of queer difference. It also portrays and interesting connection between the Gothic and queer difference.

When I say "queer" difference, I am supplying the "queer" myself as the viewer/subject -- there is nothing explicitly queer about "Thriller" or "Ghosts," but there is an explicit expression of "difference."  Michael tells Ola he is "different" and "not like the other guys" before he becomes a werewolf.  In "Ghosts," the label of "difference" is more of an allegation than a confession.  The Mayor, the conservative leader of the neighborhood "mob" (complete with torches) that storms Maestro's gothic castle, hurls a number of allegations at Maestro: "freak," "weirdo," "strange," and "scary" are a few.    

The mob arrives at Maestro's gothic castle ostensibly to run Maestro out of town.  The Mayor character says this clearly, going so far as to threaten violence, simply because Maestro is different, a "freak" or "weirdo."  The social commentary here is very reminiscent of Edward Scissorhands when the banal suburbanites storm the bizarre gothic castle on the hill, a scene that refers back to the famous villagers with pitchforks and torches from the original Frankenstein films.  The Maestro character is aligned with these misunderstood heroes.  From the outset, the audience knows that the Mayor is close-minded and prejudiced against the undefined "difference" of Maestro.  The Mayor looks like a refugee from the Eisenhower era.  While the Mayor makes it clear that they want Maestro to leave town, the rest of the "mob," consisting of moms and little boys, is actually hesitant, especially when violence is suggested.  Not everyone conforms to the Mayor's violent prejudice, but they are all there after all, so what brought them?

There are subtle references to a backstory in the script.  One of the little boys apparently told his mother about something he witnessed in the castle, and his older brother makes reference to the fact that this was supposed to be a secret.  Obviously, the children had visited Maestro previously, and had witnessed something that inspired the mob to run Maestro out of town.  There is also a reference to the Maestro telling the children ghost stories.  When the Maestro unleashes his spectacle of macabre illusion and dancing ghouls, it is easy to see why he might be perceived as a threat to the banal normality of the town.  Despite the macabre and grotesque nature of what they witness in the castle, the children seem to understand that this is all a show like some kind of Haunted House ride.  By the way, beware of some seriously corny acting from the kids in this film. 

Very similar to the character in "Thriller," Maestro is a trickster-like leader of the macabre, orchestrating various illusions like pulling off all his skin and invading the body of the Mayor.  He is the dance leader for the ghouls -- similar to the zombie dance in Thriller.  The reason I use the term "trickster" is because there is definitely a mischievousness to the way Maestro "scares" the people into accepting his presence -- similar to the way Michael scares Ola in "Thriller."  

The most interesting aspect of this film is the double relationship between the eccentric Vincent Price-like Maestro and the conservative, bigoted Mayor.  This doubling is reinforced by the fact that Michael Jackson plays both characters.  The Mayor and Maestro are truly shadow figures of each other.  At one point, the Maestro takes over the Mayor's body and the Mayor, complete with pudgy prosthetics, dances for everyone, followed by a pivotal scene where a hand with a mirror comes out of the Mayor's stomach and shows the Mayor his own monstrousness.  This doubling of the characters, emphasized by Jackson playing both parts, enhances the complexity of the film.  Neither side can be as black/white as the mentality of a traditional horror film.  In fact, the film begins with a transition from an outer black and white world that becomes a color world when they enter the inner sanctum of the castle.   

Similar to Gaston in Disney's "Beauty and the Beast" and Anthony Michael Hall's character in "Edward Scissorhands," the message here is that the true monstrousness is intolerance and prejudice against difference.  Interestingly enough, the "difference" in "Ghosts" is clearly aligned with the gothic and the monstrous, which I see as being completely infused with sexuality, both in Michael Jackson's short films and the horror genre at large.  Interpreting queerness in the difference of Maestro is ultimately subjective since there is no explicit reference to sexuality.  However, I think it is fair to say that "Ghosts" shares a sensibility and a progressive message that, for me, defines this short film as work of queer horror.