20 Terrifying Music Videos for Your Halloween From Lady Gaga, Taylor Swift, Michael Jackson, Ozzy Osbourne & Billie Eilish

It’s spooky season and what is scarier than a blood-drenched Sabrina Carpenter or a Zombie Taylor Swift emerging from the earth? Halloween is the perfect time to gather with friends, gorge on tooth-rotting candy and gather ’round the laptop to screen some of the weirdest, spookiest music videos of all time.

You can’t even talk about spine-tingling clips without starting with the OG zombie dance party: Michael Jackson‘s iconic 1983 video for “Thriller,” directed by filmmaker John Landis (An American Werewolf in London). The 15-minute mini-movie obliterated the bar for music video production at the time, filming for four days and boasting a then unheard-of $500,000 budget thanks to huge dance numbers, cutting-edge special effects and an attention to detail that came from the late singer’s obsession with old school zombie flicks.

MJ blazed the trail, but in the four decades since his landmark monster mash everyone from Swift and Carpenter to Metallica, Rihanna, Billie Eilish, Doja Cat and Lady Gaga have slipped into something icky and uncomfortable to scare, slither and freak out their fans. Sometimes the terrors are campy and kind of fun, as in the Backstreet Boys’ “(Everybody) Backstreet’s Back,” which features plenty of choreo before the fellas start barking at the moon.

Other times, as in Aphex Twin’s legit terrifying “Come to Daddy” or NIN’s stomach-turning “Closer,” the name of the game is cooking up nightmare fuel that will hang around way after the last stale Tootsie Roll peels the enamel off your teeth.

So, buckle up and prepare to bark at the moon as we give you 20 videos guaranteed to haunt your dreams, presented in no particular order.