Michael Jackson's 'Thriller' comes to IMAX in 3D (but there's a weird catch)

Arguably the most famous and popular music video of all time, Michael Jackson's "Thriller" has been digitally remastered for IMAX and 3D and will begin a week's run Friday at the IMAX auditorium in the Malco Paradiso.

The 14-minute short precedes a similarly spooky, yet family-friendly, pre-Halloween release, "The House with a Clock in Its Walls."

But there's a strange catch: "Thriller" is in 3D, but "The House with a Clock in Its Walls" is not.

So unless moviegoers want to watch a weirdly blurry "House," they will need to remove their 3D glasses after the 14 minutes of "Thriller" and hold the glasses in their hands or laps or purses or wherever for the subsequent 104 minutes of "House." (Either that, or run the glasses back out to the lobby.)

As much a mini-movie as a music video, "Thriller" — adapted from the title track of Jackon's album — debuted on Dec. 2, 1983, on MTV. At the time, Jackson was the most popular performer in the world, and the album "Thriller," released a year earlier, already was the biggest-selling album of all time.

A testament to Jackson's love of old-school horror movies (the song included a wry rap from Vincent Price) and an instantaneous pop culture phenomenon, the "Thriller" video was directed by John Landis ("An American Werewolf in London," as well as "The Blues Brothers") and featured zombie and lycanthropic transformation effects by master monster-maker Rick Baker ("The Exorcist," "The Howling"). A "Making Michael Jackson's Thriller" videocassette that included the music video sold 9 million copies, which at that time made it the most successful home-video release ever.

In 2009, the Library of Congress added "Thriller"  to the National Film Registry, the only music video so honored to date. A 2011 poll of Rolling Stone readers named "Thriller" the best music video of all time, in a vote that the magazine's editors reported was "a landslide."

At the Paradiso and in IMAX auditoriums nationwide, the 3D "Thriller" will accompany "The House with a Clock in Its Walls" for one week only; so even if "House" extends its IMAX run, "Thriller" will be gone. "Thriller" will not precede "House" in non-IMAX theaters.

A bid by gore-monger director Eli Roth ("Hostel," "The Green Inferno") for commercial all-ages respectability, "House," a production of Steven Spielberg's Amblin Entertainment company, stars Jack Black, Cate Blanchett and Owen Vacarro in a mystery-adventure about a young orphan adopted by a warlock uncle. The film is adapted from a 1973 young adult novel by the late John Bellairs.

Converted to 3D and remastered for IMAX in what a press release from Michael Jackson's estate described as "an elaborate and labor-intensive process that began with the original 35mm film negative from Michael's archives" the digitally refurbished "Thriller" had its world premiere Sept. 4 at the Venice International Film Festival.

"Michael and I always intended for people to see 'Thriller' in a movie theater," director Landis told The Hollywood Reporter, prior to the Venice screening. "But we didn’t just restore 'Thriller,' we enhanced it … like in that scene in 'The Wizard of Oz' when Dorothy and the others are being buffed and polished inside Emerald City.”