Many people will remember the iconic Michael Jackson Thriller House from his ‘Thriller’ music video. The ‘Thriller’ video was created in 1983, a year after his album (also called Thriller) had been released. With a budget of $900,000, it was by far the biggest music video of its time and easily the most iconic music video ever.
Towards the end of the 14-minute video, we see Michael Jackson’s love interest (Ola Ray), run into what looks like a very spooky house. She is followed by Michael, and a handful of other monsters who she believes are about to attack her, before waking up. This is the house that has become known as the ‘Thriller House.’
The Michael Jackson Thriller House And Music Video
The story behind the Thriller video is a long and highly detailed one. After the album had huge hits with ‘Beat It’ and ‘Billie Jean,’ Epic Records had little interest in making an expensive music video for Thriller as they believed the album had already peaked.
Eventually, they agreed to contribute $100,000 while the rest of the funding came from various sources, including half the budget from the new TV channel Showtime, which justified it as funding a motion picture, not just a music video.
Jackson hired John Landis as director, who had just finished filming ‘An American Werewolf In London.’ Together, they came up with the concept for the video, with Jackson turning into a monster, much like the transformation into a werewolf.
Landis’s wife, Deborah Nadoolman, who had recently worked on the movie ‘Raiders of the Lost Ark,’ worked on costume design, including Michael Jackson’s iconic red jacket.
The choreography was created by Michael Jackson and Michael Peters, who had worked together a year previously on the ‘Beat It’ video.
Finally, it all came down to casting and location. Jennifer Beals turned down the role of Jackson’s girlfriend in the video, and so it eventually went to Ola Ray, a former Playboy Playmate who had previously had a role in ’48 Hours’ with Eddie Murphy.
The majority of the video, including the iconic dance scene, was filmed at the junction of Union Pacific Avenue and South Calzona Street as you can see above.
The end of the video at the haunted-looking house was filmed at 1345 Carroll Avenue in Echo Park. Just a few hundred meters from The Fast and the Furious house and the Training Day house.
In 1999, MTV named ‘Thriller’ the greatest music video ever.
The Michael Jackson Thriller House Today
The Michael Jackson Thriller house can be found at 1345 Carroll Avenue, Los Angeles, California. It is a 3,532-square-foot home with four bedrooms and four bathrooms.
Unfortunately, the Michael Jackson Thriller house is a private residence that last sold in 1986 for $150k. Therefore, no photos of the property interior are in the public domain, and there is no way of getting access as the owners don’t allow visits.
However, in some way, this adds to the mystique of the property; not much appears to have changed from the outside in 40 years.
While many people now call this property the ‘Michael Jackson Thriller House’ or simply the ‘Thriller House,’ its official name is the ‘Sanders House,’ named after Michael Sanders, the first owner of the property way back in 1887.
