Michael Jackson’s Ghosts (1996) – What Happened to This Horror Short Film?

There have been many memorable music videos over the last few decades, but for many, still the undisputed champ would be Michael Jackson’s “Thriller.” The iconic video, directed by John Landis in 1983, changed the game for the artform, creating a vibrant, haunting world that was part music video, part horror movie. It’s still a favorite for many of us who grew up in the 80s, and it’s seemingly always finding new fans with each passing generation. Jackson was a force in plenty of notable videos in his time, but one that has escaped most people’s notice is the one we’re going to focus on today: “Ghosts.” It’s fairly surprising how under-the-radar this video has been since its debut in 1996 considering the names involved with it. And while part of its low profile could certainly be attributed to the controversies that have swirled around the pop singer for years, it can also be chalked up to the fact that while it aimed to be the next “Thriller,” it never reached those challenging heights. Still, when you have a project that brings together the likes of Michael Jackson, Stephen King, Stan Winston and Mick Garris, it’s hard not to wonder what could have been had it all come together without a hitch. So today, we’re going to take a look at WTF Happened to Michael Jackson’s “Ghosts.” And before we move on, we’d like to wholeheartedly thank horror legend Mick Garris for exclusively talking to us about his contributions to the video, even if he departed the project before it became the video you can see today.

In 1993, Garris was coming off the soon-to-be cult classic Stephen King’s Sleepwalkers and working on another King project, the epic miniseries The Stand, which wound up taking an entire year to prep, shoot and edit. One day while he was on set, King was suddenly handed a phone, and who was on the other end but Michael Jackson himself. According to King, Jackson was enlisting the author to write what he hoped would be the scariest music video of all time, something that would quote-unquote “shock the world.” King, never one to back down from a challenge, accepted the assignment and started working off Jackson’s initial idea, which was inspired by the old Universal Monster movies from the 30s – Frankenstein in particular. Jackson’s concept involved a mob of angry townspeople barging into the castle of a local eccentric known as the Maestro with the aim of kicking him out of their village. Tellingly, they’re particularly enraged by his relationship with their children, who vehemently defend their unusual friend. Their pleas fall on deaf ears, of course, and the parents threaten the harmless Maestro, who retaliates with an elaborate song and dance performance featuring a bevy of creepy ghouls and ghosts.

To direct, King recommended his Sleepwalkers and Stand director Garris, who was just starting post-production on the miniseries. Though obviously busy with that undertaking Garris was excited to be a part of the ambitious project. Garris enlisted multiple Oscar-winner Stan Winston to create the various monster effects, while the cinematographer for the video was to be Mikael Solomon, who’d shot The Abyss for James Cameron. The video’s title was “Is This Scary?” and its original intent was to promote the release of Addams Family Values, which Jackson had written an original song for.

According to Garris, there was a lot of pre-production done beforehand, but shooting commenced fairly quickly after that stage had been completed. Garris shot approximately two weeks of footage on “Is This Scary?” although all of the footage was relegated to the parts of the video with the angry mob facing off against the Maestro – they never got to the actual musical numbers. By most accounts, working with Jackson was not exactly easy. Despite his generous spirit and gracious attitude toward his collaborators, Jackson worked on his own schedule, and could not be counted on to arrive on set for his call time – or even hours after said call time… Garris recalls that being on set with Jackson was like having a schedule painted by Salvador Dali – it seemed as though everyone was working at his leisure, and you never knew exactly when he’d grace the set with his presence. Sometimes he’d be playing video games in his trailer, which was protected by bodyguards who’d allow no one near the most famous man on the planet, and only after he’d been reminded how crucial it was that he be on set would Jackson apologize and get to work. All that aside, Garris recalls the experience of working with Jackson as being nothing less than enjoyable.

During this production period, the script for “Is This Scary?” underwent changes, from both Jackson and Garris, while they were shooting. King had long since moved on from the project, and with Jackson being a perfectionist, things moved fairly slowly on making the video even with the script in good shape. And then, after about two weeks of filming, Michael Jackson literally disappeared. This, of course, coincided with the first allegations of abuse against him – allegations that would continue to plague the rest of the singer’s career. It turned out Jackson had ended up in Thailand as part of a concert tour, and with the controversy surrounding the King of Pop, it did not look like “Is This Scary?” was going to get right back on track. Still, for a short while, it seemed as though the video would continue its production – though this time in Japan. All of the sets for the video were shipped to Japan with an eye toward resuming production there, although according to Garris nothing ever came of that, and the sets were subsequently shipped back to California.

During this tumultuous period, production had officially stalled on “Is This Scary?” though Garris says he frequently received calls from Jackson, who was still enthusiastic about making the video. Naturally, at this point the video was not going to be a part of Addams Family Values, which was coming out in November of ’93, and Jackson reportedly returned the money Paramount Pictures had given him for “Is This Scary?”, which had a budget – at that point anyway – of around $7 million.

Three whole years passed, and it seemed clear to Garris that “Is This Scary?” was a thing of the past to be filed in the “what could have been?” folder. But low and behold Michael was still interested in finishing the video, although by this time Garris had moved on to pre-production on The Shining miniseries. Despite Jackson’s pleas for the director to return to the troubled production, Garris was fully committed to the Stephen King adaptation and couldn’t alter his schedule. He then recommended Stan Winston, who’d already contributed some of his time to the video, to take the directing reins – Winston of course had worked with great directors like James Cameron and Steven Spielberg by that point, as well as helmed his own horror flick, Pumpkinhead. Incidentally, Winston and Jackson had worked together before when they were both a lot younger on 1978’s The Wiz, which Winston provided special make-up effects for.

With Winston now on board, the music video transformed into something more epic than its original iteration. The budget ballooned, which didn’t make much of a difference since Jackson was now paying for the whole thing out of his own pocket. What was originally supposed to be a video running in the neighborhood of 12 to 14 minutes long would eventually end up being 39 minutes long, at the time the longest music video ever released – although it was Jackson’s preference to refer to it as a “film.”

Winston had an ambitious ask for his leading man: he wanted Jackson to play five different roles in the video. Jackson, who’d always yearned to be taken seriously as an actor, agreed, and ended up playing the Maestro, the Skeleton, the Ghoul, the Mayor and the Ghoul Mayor. The Mayor character is particularly notable for how impressive Winston’s make-up hides Jackson’s signature visage, and perhaps it’s equally notable to mention the Mayor is the fiercest and most abusive of the Maestro’s enemies. The process of turning Jackson into this character took at least three hours each time.

Filming lasted approximately a month and a half, a rather long schedule for a music video – with shooting frequently going 12 hours a day, five days a week. Replacing the previous D.P. was another James Cameron collaborator, Russell Carpenter, who shot True Lies and would go on to shoot Titanic.

The visual effects were a combination of digital compositing, CGI enhancement, and in-camera tricks. The newly formed computer graphics division of Stan Winston Studio, Stan Winston Digital, was responsible for the CGI, some of which was groundbreaking for the time – including some very early motion-capture effects work displayed when Jackson is playing the skeleton. The video was Winston’s last effort as a director as he went into producing and, of course, returned to his special effects work, which he continued until his passing in 2008.

After being known as “Is This Scary?” for so long the finished product was now called Michael Jackson’s Ghosts. It was used to help promote Jackson’s two HIStory albums, released in 1995 and 1997. The short was first released in limited theatrical release, sometimes accompanying another King-penned movie, Thinner, and it eventually screened at the 1997 Cannes Film Festival out of competition. It wasn’t widely circulated until landing on various home video collections of Jackson’s work.

But for all the effort put into it over the course of three years, “Ghosts” never seemed to make a lasting impact, let alone a splash resembling the spectacular reception “Thriller” received when it came out over a decade prior. That said, it’s still a fascinating artifact left over from a different time. One wonders what might have been, if the various big names attached to it could have made it without the serious offscreen drama that would come to define the troubled performer known as the King of Pop.

A couple of the previous episodes of What Happened to This Horror Movie? can be seen below. To see more, head over to our JoBlo Horror Originals YouTube channel – and subscribe while you’re there!

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