This non-official video for Parisian electronics and drums duo Zombie Zombie is a remake of John Carpenter’s The Thing. Directors Simon Gisrel and Xavier Ehretsmann manage to retain the creepiness of the original using only stop-motion animated GI Joe figures. Pretty rad.

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It can often be the case that a music video detracts from the music itself. You listen to a song or album and you set your own landscape to it, you imagine the expression of the performer and you conjure the scenery that catalyses such great songwriting. Then you watch the video and all is not how you wanted it to be. She/he isn’t as intimate as you’d dreamed and the choreography is staged and inorganic. It’s like a film version of a great book: why force the imagination along a different route? But this video is one of the rare ones that hijacks the listener and carries them along in tandem with the song. It fits the music perfectly with the rusty recording and transient mood of the piece.

This clip had such an impact on me when it first came out, back in the day. There’s just something so poignant about the idea that some people you pass on the street everyday have a little bit more insight into their world — our world — than we could ever imagine. It’s beautiful and confronting, and it’s all set to the most wonderfully evocative music.