Turn off the lights, grab some candy, and prepare to get spooky. Halloween is coming up and it’s time to once again, check out creepy music videos. These videos range from scary and disturbing to unnerving and chilling. So get comfortable and prepare for scares as we look at 13 more creepy videos. If there’s a video you don’t see that you think should’ve made the list, be sure to check out the previous list on creepy videos.
13. “Pinion” – Nine Inch Nails
Nine Inch Nails have some of the most notorious creepy videos, like “Happiness in Slavery,” and while this brief clip isn’t their most disturbing, it’s still pretty damn eerie. We start in a stark white bathroom unsure of what’s going on. We see a dark liquid being flushed and then we travel through the pipes. The tension begins building up as you’re not sure where this will end. Finally, we see a bound and gagged body hooked up to the pipes and twitching in pain. That image gets burned in your mind once you see it. The whole thing is so freaking ominous. It lets your imagination run wild wondering what’s waiting on the other side of the pipes. Just shows you don’t have to overly graphic to be scary.
12. “Sheena is a Parasite” – The Horrors
This video is short and simple, but effective. Directed by Chris Cunningham, the video stars Samantha Morton who convulses, flails, and dances as if she doesn’t have control of her body. It’s uncomfortable to watch, but it gets worse when the hook hits and Morton starts transforming. She spews her intestines towards the camera and her head loses shape, wiggling and morphing like an alien. It’s so weird, disgusting and unexpected you’ll never forget it.
11. “A Little Piece of Heaven” – Avenged Sevenfold
Everyone knows the story of boy meets girl, falls in love, gets rejected, and eats her heart. At least that’s what happens in this Avenged Sevenfold clip. The animated video has plenty of disturbing elements, like necrophilia, heart devouring, and murder but there’s also a sick sense of humor to it. The over the top violence and animated skeleton choir makes it more of a dark comedy and provides a perfect balance of gore and humor. On top of that, it’s a satisfying story of revenge that actually ends up as a romance. Boy kills girlfriend, she comes back and kills him, they bond over murder, and happily feast on brains as zombies. Ah, what could be sweeter? Despite its creep factor, it’s an entertaining video if you have a dark sense of humor.
10. “Feral Love” – Chelsea Wolfe
This video manages to be unnerving even if you don’t get what it’s about. Taken from the film Lone written by Wolfe and directed by Mark Pellington, a bunch of seemingly random scenes are thrown at you and you’re unsure of how they’re connected. Dead bodies, dripping blood, people convulsing in weird ways, creepy masks, bloodstained sheets, and innocent home movies with a sinister undertone make us this video. It’s like you’re watching the sequel to The Ring tape. The entire time Wolfe is singing while staring into the camera with pitch black eyes. It’s as if she’s trying to suck out your soul the whole time you’re watching. You want to pull away, but her stare is so intense you can’t.
9. “Mein Herz Brennt” (My Heart Burns) – Rammstein
Rammstein’s “Mein Herz Brennt” (My heart burns) doesn’t need lots of gore and violence to be creepy. Instead, it’s the sense of dread, misery, and tension that provides the scares. With a macabre tone, it deals with kidnapped orphans, weird alien-like creatures that make your skin crawl, and cruel child experimentation only to be topped off with Till Lindemann eating a human heart. All this is mixed with footage of the band playing stringed instruments while wearing bloody, faceless masks. The Gothic undertones give it an unsettling feeling similar to horror movies like The Orphanage. It’s a slow building horror that makes this video scary. Even if you don’t piece together the story right away, you know something is wrong and it is chilling.
9. “Kids” – MGMT
Remember when your parents assured you there’s no such thing as monsters? That’s not the case for the star of this video. A toddler is repeatedly frightened by monsters, bloodied zombies, and strange beings only he can see. His mother is too caught up in her phone to pay any attention and even lets him wander off into the woods to encounter the band at one point. It ends with trippy animation, vivid colors, and a disturbing wolf being. It’s like Sesame Street on acid. Not only are the weird costumes and bloody monsters enough to freak you out, but the sheer terror of this kid and seeing his unheard cries makes you tremble. Luckily, the kid was actually enjoying himself during the video shoot.
7. “If I Had a Heart” – Fever Ray
This is a bone-chilling video. The horror here is subtle opening with children crossing a river while people in strange masks look on. A sense of dread builds up and practically explodes as the camera pans across several lifeless bodies. Fever Ray sounds and looks like a menacing spirit covered in black and white makeup, her eyes completely devoid of life. The dark imagery paired with the haunting tone of the song create a horror that gets under your skin and unnerves you rather than makes you scream out loud.
6. “Sober” – Tool
Tool’s videos are nightmare inducing. They feature impressive visuals and animation, but are filled with disturbing imagery, trippy visuals, and are just flat out weird. “Prison Sex” is probably their most disturbing clip, but “Sober” isn’t any better. Filmed entirely in stop motion, it starts relatively tame showing a disfigured man obsessing over a locked box. Everything starts to spiral out of control the more he peeks into the box. He begins floating, his limbs shake uncontrollably, and he encounters strange, disfigured beings in his house. Gore is kept to a minimum, but it’s the weird imagery and sense of uneasiness that makes this one creepy. The animation is great, but it’s so damn uncomfortable to watch.
5. “Worlock” – Skinny Puppy
Skinny Puppy’s “Warlock” is not for the faint of heart. In the first 48 seconds, you’ll see eyeballs popping out of someone’s head, hands being stabbed, and lots of blood and guts. The video is a barrage of gruesome scenes from horror movies, like The Beyond, Hellraiser, and Re-Animator. It’s clear the violence isn’t real, but seeing so much blood, guts, and gore bombarding you every second is enough to turn your stomach. The whole video keeps you on edge since you never know what’s coming next. It doesn’t give you any breathing room; the violence and gore keep coming at you for five straight minutes. Unsurprisingly, it was banned, but not for gore. Rather, it was banned for violating copyright for the movie scenes. Best to avoid this one when you’re eating.
4. “Saku” – Dir En Grey
Nothing will ever top Dir En Grey’s extreme, stomach-churning “Obscure.” But that doesn’t mean their other videos aren’t as sick, weird, or disturbing. “Saku” plays out like a J-horror film starting with non-stop bloody and rotting imagery coming at you. As the band keeps performing the disturbing story begins to unravel: a boy comes home from school, murders his parents, and continues life as normal. He even eats dinner with their rotting corpses at the table. It’s not very gory, but well-placed shots of a bloody golf club and the kid’s eerie sense of calm after the crime make this video chilling.
3. “Bonfire” – Childish Gambino
What first looks like the set up of a horror film turns into a disturbing realization. Set at a summer camp, Gambino wakes up, a noose around the neck, and vomits blood. He’s lost until he sees campers in the distance. He’s relieved until he spots someone heading towards them carrying a knife and a noose. It seems like a typical horror movie scenario until Gambino reaches the bonfire to warn the campers and no one sees him. Turns out the guy wasn’t a killer. He was just the final act of the camp consolers tale about Gambino’s death. The video ends with Gambino waking up with a noose around his neck once again. It’s a shocking clip that goes beyond superficial horror and gets to the scary reality about racism and how the act turns from something to be upset about to something used for entertainment.
2. “Rubber Johnny” – Aphex Twin
Aphex Twin videos are always a bizarre experience. While “Come to Daddy” is the stuff of nightmares, there’s chilling and cringe-inducing about “Rubber Johnny.” Right from the beginning, you’re uncomfortable listening to this misshapen being make sputtering noises. The sense of uneasiness never leaves you throughout the video. As the music intensifies, Johnny’s movements grow more spastic and he begins splatting against the camera filling the screen with goo and guts. But you gotta admit, he’s got some sick dance moves. It’s one of those videos you’ll never forget once you see it, though it may haunt your dreams. Come to think about it, all of Aphex Twin’s videos are terrifying.
1. “Ready Err Not” – Flying Lotus
There’s all kinds of messed up shit happening in this video. You have deformed freaky people, cannibalism, implications of sexual assault, beheading, babies slurping the guts of other babies, and bodies being ripped apart. The amount of gore, blood, and guts coming at you is overwhelming and the surreal animation makes everything more disturbing. You want it to end, but you don’t want to stop watching. You want to see what messed up thing is coming next. The video feels like it was made to gross and freak you out. Mission accomplished. Then again would you expect anything other than grotesque and creepy from the creator of Salad Fingers?
Which creepy videos did I miss? Let me know in the comments!