Duran Duran Did It First

So I've been listening to a number of horror podcast lately and everyone of them talks about the total awesomeness of Michael Jackson's Thriller video and yes indeed, it was awesome. For many of the podcaster my age this video was the moment they got into zombies and horror in general. I remember being at my aunt's house with my parents and watching the premiere. I got about as far as Michael looking up with his yellow eyes and then mine shut. I spent the rest of the video with eyes closed as tight as I could get them. However, for me, my fascination with zombies started with a little known video called "Night Boat" by Duran Duran.

My sister and I are 6 years apart and grew up sharing a room. She was IN LOVE WITH DURAN DURAN. I can't stress this enough. Every inch of the walls on her side were covered with pictures from magazines like 16, Tiger Beat and Star Hits which later became Smash Hits. She also had a grainy video tape that was a dub of a dub of a dub for some one's satellite of some Duran Duran videos. One of these was Night Boat. It's the first song on the second side of their first self titled album.

The video starts as standard Duran Duran fare with the band walking around Antigua but there is foreshadowing of a hanging walkie-talkie mic and an empty store. There is a weird little dialogue between Nick Rhodes and Simon Le Bon with Simon telling Nick "She'll be here soon." Nick asks "Who is she?" Simon replies "Nobody knows what she looks like." Nick asks again "Who is she anyway?" to which Simon replies "She's the fairies' mid-wife." and breaks into a few couplets from I believe A Midsummer Night's Dream. Then we see a flash of a "zombie" face (it looks like cracking plaster) and then John Taylor throws off his trade mark Fedora and screams.

The rest of the video is the band, with the exception of Simon, being chased by torn linen clad zombies around the island while Simon hitches a ride of the zombie yacht and sails away with torn sails. This video was filmed and released in 1982 while the Thriller video was released in 1983. Yes, Michael may have done it better, but Duran Duran did it first.