Michael Jackson's Ghosts (1996)

 

Director: Stan Winston

Screenplay: Stephen King, Stan Winston, Mick Garris and Michael Jackson

Cast: Michael Jackson as the Maestro / the Mayor; Pat Dade as Pat; Amy Smallman as Amy; Edwina Moore as Edwina; Yasiin Bey as Dante; Seth Smith as Seth; Kendall Cunningham as Kendall; Loren Randolph as Loren; Heather Ehlers as Heather

A Night of a Thousand Horror (Movies) #224

 

You're weird. You're strange. I don't like you.

I will start this review by saying, since this is covering a Michael Jackson related project, if any reader wishes to skip the piece, go ahead. Jackson is a complicated figure, frankly a paradox. His allegations of sexual misconduct with minors has made him a much more difficult figure to think of in the public eye, but for myself that aspect of Jackson is not the focus of today. It has to be kept in the back of the mind, it cannot be ignored, but it is still not the focus of this obscure entity in his career, a short extended music video which does admittedly have some unfortunate turn of phrases that evoke the reality. The last thing you want through the power of hindsight, in which the parents of a couple of boys and the mayor of a small town enter the gothic home of the Maestro (Michael Jackson), demanding him to leave as an unwanted outsider, is some of the dialogue having unfortunate innuendo, including his secrets with the boys. For what is in fact an attempt to outdo Thriller, the legendary 1983 music video shot by John Landis which became one of the most iconic things of Jackson's career, the last probably wanted is obscurity and unfortunate mirroring to real life.

Jackson was not only one of the most successful musicians of his time, but also a cultural phenomenon, which means that we are stuck in a scenario where his music still plays on the radio but the real man has been challenged by the likes of the documentary Leaving Neverland (2019). It says a lot about Jackson as well that, if one was to step back from the uncomfortable subject of whether you think he is guilty or not, his superstar success beyond just music is a strange thing in itself. Starring in Disney theme park attractions helmed by Francis Ford Coppola, videogame tie-ins, collaborating with Sega, even getting Jarvis Cocker to storm your performance, Jackson's career like many big mainstream figures when considered has a lot of strange tie-ins and work to capitalise on his success. Some of it is entirely his, like Ghosts, where he attempted to push his passions or ambitions in such a project with direct involvement. Others like Moonwalker (1988), a strange mainstream theatrical, a drama mixed with music videos and live footage which eventually involves Jackson even having to transform into a car to rescue children from evil Joe Pesci. Even before you get to fan culture, or work and documentaries made after his death, even the ones condemning him in honestly still riding on his star status whether their moral purpose, Michael Jackson just like an Elvis Presley or a non-musical star like Bruce Lee exists in a place where crossover success or legendary status means stuff can appear for television or the cinema in your name which is peculiar in the future to look at¹.

Ghosts is the same, though it has never been re-released on DVD, as elusive as Captain EO (the Coppola theme park film) but without an obvious factor to its absence from available, nothing as obvious as a Disney Theme Park ride project being a roadblock to licensing. Ghosts, in its background, is marked by being around the time some of the first accusations of indecency with children began in the early nineties, an uncomfortable parallel with a plot where he plays an isolated count beloved by children but about to be chased out of town by the locals, one of which who is the Major played by Michael Jackson himself. His doppelganger in elaborate makeup who calls himself a freak and loathes him is probably the strangest aspect, as much because of the makeup effects, and for the unintentional psychodrama with the real Michael Jackson you cannot ignore even if the viewer places it on themselves. The psychology behind this casting choice is strange even without the context, either way a bit too real for what was meant as a sequel to Thriller. Even without this darker real life history too, this was around the time Jackson's plastic surgery and its physical results became an issue, and infamously the time Jarvis Cocker invaded the stage during his live performances of the Earth Song at the 1996 Brit Awards and literally waved his arse in protest to him, a sense of the King of Pop becoming a far more easier target of derision.

Against this, an elaborate music video with large scale dance choreography and special effects, also had to follow from Thriller, the song a legendary piece of his career but the video as iconic as you could get. Ghosts, stemming further from Jackson's love of horror cinema, is amazingly obscure considering that, to top what came before, legendary special effects creator Stan Winston is helming the film, with the narrative and screenplay gestating from Jackson himself, Winston, Mick Garris, famously a go-to director for Stephen King adaptations at this period, and the legendary author Stephen King himself. Said final result however, barring being released in front of theatrical screenings of Thinner (1996), a very weird and misanthropic adaptation of one of King's novels from his "Richard Bachman" days, is likely to be unknown by many who even know about Moonwalker.

Ghosts in itself, whilst never going to top the Thriller music video and is shackled to the innovative digital technology that has dated, is nonetheless a spooky and fun experience. Between Stan Winston and Stephen King of all people being collaborators on the project, it would have been difficult to fail miserably at the project, and between Jackson turning into a dancing CGI skeleton and the elaborateness of the dance sequences, it adds to the fever dream mentality that has arguably been found in all his work. He never lost the power, despite everything, to make the most expensive music video in Scream at one point in this era, never lost the power to even have Ghosts made, or fill such work with strange idiosyncratic detail. With history, many of which were could be summed up from a musician who always stayed a child by all accounts, the same mentality of just including various things because he thought it would be awesome for fans as it was for him. Even that idea of him as the child-man is however one which should be questioned

Despite having had a theme park called Neverland built and a Peter Pan persona put on him, other accounts also suggest Jackson as a very adult man, one who was also a ladies' man too, one who especially when it came to the content of his music vastly contrasted the persona placed onto him in how adult the lyrics were. Ghosts also shows the schism between the innocent persona, including all the problematic baggage, and the very adult themes his pop music had. The album this mostly promotes, Blood on the Dance Floor: HIStory in the Mix (1997), is a great album, if bearing in mind (as with HIStory: Past, Present and Future, Book I (1995)) he inexplicably included remixes and greater hit compilations as part of the albums alongside original material, Blood on the Dance Floor a case where the first five songs, the original works, are the real concern for anyone to listen to the LP. They are used in this film for its jaunty haunted house spectacle, and the New Jack Swing trend that influenced them is of the era, but actually hearing the lyrics of Ghosts and Is It Scary make them very dark songs. Even in mind to the later being originally for Addams Family Values (1993), Is It Scary's refrain of "And if you wanna see eccentrialities / I'll be grotesque before your eyes" is very ominous in terms of the derision Jackson was getting at the time, and the controversies with accusations. Ghosts, which plays horror metaphors to someone tormenting Jackson and terrorising him, is for me arguably one of the best songs in his output but also a really twisted exposure of his psyche, provocative and likely so on purpose at a vulnerable point of being dogged in his real life.

It really contrasts a film of a heightened spooky play, where all the horror tropes, like Jackson stripping his skin off to dance as a skeleton to the ghoul backing dancers climbing on the ceiling, is for fun. That and having himself mirrored by the Mayor, and all the times both call each other freaks throughout the short film, really expose too much by accident of a psychological profile. Within a film where an uncredited Dave Chappelle with his over-the-top scared villager acting should be of attention for how absurd it is, instead most people with some context of the musician's history, unless you watch the film as a fan for fun, are going to be unpicking some much psychodrama intentionally there and accidentally exaggerated.

The added factor to bear in mind is that Jackson was always incredible as a dancer and as a musician, making the controversies and debate around him more difficult, but also making sure even Ghosts is even more striking. Whilst they have got horror allusions, the songs here are all effectively fuck-youds to all the accusations and criticisms he got which, contrasting a man with a childlike wonder who built a literal Neverland with almost a split personality, a grown man who spits out stinging lyrics whilst dancing better like anyone could. Like Prince, who was going through his the Artist Formerly Known as Prince era at this time, they were both very eccentric individuals who however backed up these decisive personalities by having music few were good enough to produce and stage magnetism few ever possessed. Jackson's story is difficult to deal with, even in mind to the fact his childhood was also terrible, but it is fascinating to watch a man whose psychological makeup and his output, but in quality of the work and the psychological underbelly, were equals in their density.

Whether its defendable in Jackson's case is entirely up to you, but hoping one day Ghosts can be watched in a better quality, it itself was a fascinating piece of the man's career and worth the experience. It is also, with an example like Moonwalker, just one of many of these titles of his in existence. Ghosts, in spite of its obscurity, was meant to be a mainstream release, premiering at the Cannes Film Festival² even, a rare case of a mainstream production entirely fed by a voice's singular obsessions and the curiosities as a result. Whether the truth of the man behind this film,  digging into this stuff even for amateur armchair psychology will be compelling.

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1) Moonwalker, which was unavailable in the US but was released on DVD in Britain, is a completely indulgent project at the height of his fame. Where Jackson inexplicably demanded he turned into a car at one point to fight Joe Pesci, worth mentioning twice because that dramatic segment also has the incredible Smooth Criminal dance sequence, perfectly summing up an example of weird celebrity ephemera at its best and peculiar at the same time.

2) Linked to HERE.