The 21 Most Surprisingly Creepy Music Videos in Rock 'n' Roll History

There are plenty of scary music videos out there, but many of them are from artists you'd expect to go the horror route: Marilyn Manson, Nine Inch Nails, Tool, etc. But there are also many videos that are even more unsettling and off-putting, simply because it's unexpected. Whether it's possessed children starring in the clip of an '80s ballad, pop rockers tearing off their skin or indie bands setting their music to disembowelments, we present to you this list of 21 surprisingly creepy music videos. Enjoy our picks, don't watch while eating, and good luck sleeping.

1. 'Thriller,' Michael Jackson

The greatest music video of all time begins with the devout MJ's shocking disclaimer -- "Due to my strong personal convictions, I wish to stress that this film in no way endorses a belief in the occult" -- and doesn't let up with the surprises for 14 minutes. Many have tried to top it; none have succeeded.

2. 'Total Eclipse of the Heart,' Bonnie Tyler


Apparently when Bonnie sang, "Turn around, bright eyes," she actually meant this: "Turn around, you freakily bright-eyed children, because you're scaring the crap out of me." Maybe it's the fault of 'Old School' that we forgot how twisted this video is.

3. 'Y Control,' Yeah Yeah Yeahs

Considering its predecessor -- the video for 'Maps,' in which Yeah Yeah Yeahs frontwoman Karen O earnestly cries in front of apathetic high school ingrates -- the 'Y Control' clip was rather jarring. Granted, the sight of young children chopping off each others' hands and slicing open their guts is never easy to take, but what a contrast!

4. 'You for Leaving Me,' Colourmusic

Cutting up teddy bears, disguising their bloody carcasses as cake and feeding it to children? Well, that's one way to ruin a party.

5. 'All Alone in an Empty House,' Lost in the Trees

Have you ever been alone in an empty house and started to think that maybe you weren't alone? Have you ever been all alone in empty house and started to think that maybe, just maybe, someone had a shotgun pointed right at the back of your head? Have you ever suspected an assailant had a shotgun pointed straight at your dome and turned around with knives drawn to catch him in a Mexican standoff, all the while some pastoral indie-folk plays in the background? Oh, you have?

6. 'The Big Bad Wolf,' Duck Sauce


Duck Sauce, the DJ duo of Armand Van Helden and A-Trak, are known for their wacky videos and dance-till-you-drop house music ethos. However, their latest video clip is FAR, FAR weirder than faux-'70s game shows or a string of celebrity cameos. After watching these dudes suffer from a shocking affliction, our heads weren't really in the right place either.

7. 'Companions,' The Dodos

We all want a companion for the road -- someone to keep us company on those long hauls, midnight drives and lonely hours spent crossing the highway expanse. Here, we can sympathize with the Dodos' Meric Long. What nobody wants is a hitchhiker who magically appears in the car, chloroforms you and then keeps you as a pet. Nobody wants that.

8. 'Kids,' MGMT

The fact that they begin with a Nietzsche quote misattributed to Mark Twain, one of America's greatest humorists and cynics, might give insight into MGMT's whimsical and oddball sense of humor; however, there is almost nothing funny about crazy insect monsters terrorizing babies in their cribs. That stuff is just plain scary. Given the song's easy, electro lilt, it seems safe to say that nobody saw this one coming -- and it only gets weirder from there.

9. 'Mary Jane's Last Dance,' Tom Petty

Who knew that Tom Petty looked so much like a mortician? No offense, but the dude's a natural in the necrophiliac mortician role. Yeah, this video just gets weirder and weirder right up until the end, at which point it might be Petty's character who ends up the most creeped out.

10. 'Cruel,' St. Vincent

Annie Clark, aka St. Vincent, is so cute and unassuming that it generally comes as a surprise to viewers/listeners when they discover how hard she can shred (Answer: really freakin' hard). So her video showing a suburban dream that turns into a horrible, horrible nightmare and involves her cult-like family burying her alive ... well, we'll just say it was pretty shocking.

11. 'White Wedding,' Billy Idol

The video for Billy Idol's 'White Wedding' runs sort of like a series of non-sequiturs. The clip involves a wedding ring made from spikes, people making vaguely militaristic gestures, an animated outcropping of rock a la 'The Lion King' and a motorcycle bursting through a church's rose window. It seems as good a day as any other for a white wedding.

12. 'Black Hole Sun,' Soundgarden

People who are happy all the time give us the willies, but they don't even come close to the same level of disturbing as these wide-smiling suburban freaks. It's surprising enough that Soundgarden's oddity of a single became a hit, but it's even odder that this video became such a classic.

13. 'The Greeks,' Is Tropical

The Greeks are known as philosophers, fathers of democracy and seafaring conquerors. That, simply put, is why we didn't expect of bunch of bloodthirsty, prepubescent killing maniacs -- who, by the way, have a sophisticated understanding of C4 explosives and absolutely no regard for human life -- to be the stars of Is Tropical's video for 'The Greeks.'

14. 'Owner of a Lonely Heart,' Yes


This Yes video starts out innocuously enough -- your basic dudes-playing-in-a-room schtick -- until, "Hang on, hang on," someone must have said, "Maybe there's another way to do this." Who in their right mind would think that the other way would be to turn the band into different members of the animal kingdom, switch to black and white and haunt people in colorful nightmares? Even though the '80s ended 21 years ago, we still can't figure out what to expect from them.

15. 'The Whale Song,' Modest Mouse

Modest Mouse's video for 'The Whale Song' is a real slow burner -- we really must emphasize that. It starts out with Isaac Brock using an awesome steam-punkish string-powered drawing machine that we would like to see invented ASAP. When the vocals kick in halfway through, the creepiest thing about the video is probably its obsession with string. However, it's in the last quarter that things really heat up. Watch it -- we can't spill our guts here.

16. 'Supertime,' Bernsden


After watching this video, it became clear that our fear of car crashes may have been slightly misplaced. It's not so much what happens during the crash that is of primary concern but rather what happens afterward. Additionally, we felt compelled to resuscitate a long-dead rule born from 18th-century tuberculosis concerns: Never waltz with someone who is coughing up blood.

17. 'Drugs,' Ratatat


Created out of stock footage from Getty Images, director Carl Burgess's clip for the electro duo's 2010 track clued us in to just how unsettling low-grade acting can be. Take our word for it -- we sat through five whole minutes of 'Burlesque.'

18. 'We Are Water,' Health


Let's just say that if this were the video for Duck Sauce's 'Big Bad Wolf,' somebody would've only been poked in the eye. Instead, something much worse happens, though it seems deserved, since the fellow being maimed is a crazed, murderous butcher with a blatant disregard for clothes in the wintertime. Also, why do villains pause for so long before they kill their victims? It only gets them in trouble.

19. 'Rock DJ,' Robbie Williams


In retrospect, this video isn't that weird. That is only because we now know that Robbie Williams threw some of his career in the toilet to go hunt UFOs. But yeah, as creepy and disgusting as this is, kudos to Robbie for discovering how to get more than naked. The truly weird ones are those chicks in the crowd who are like eating his triceps and stuff. The whole affair is enough to make anybody ask "When's it gonna stop, DJ?" For the love of god, when?

20. 'Cut Me Out,' MNDR

Having first heard MNDR's Amanda Warner on Mark Ronson's insanely catchy 'Bang Bang Bang,' we definitely did not expect to someday watch her take scissors to her own face, as she does in the 'Cut Me Out' video. The electro-pop singer knew it might upset viewers, admitting to us, "Some people don't wanna watch someone cut their face off."

21. 'Sweetest Kill,' Broken Social Scene


Unless you have an irrational fear of Canadians (maybe their healthcare system terrifies you?), there's really no reason to be scared of Broken Social Scene. That's why we were so shocked to see the indie collective's video, in which actress Bijou Phillips murders her lover and graphically hacks up his corpse. Even band member Andrew Whiteman, who has never seen the clip and says the song is about teens at a summer-camp dance, was surprised by the plot, telling us, "The literalism of that -- it's like 'the song is called 'Sweetest Kill,' so why don't we have a hot chick kill her boyfriend?' Like, what the f--- is that? That's weak s---, man."

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