Howling in shadows / Living in a lunar spell / He finds his heaven / Spewing from the mouth of Hell
Unlike his fellow hard rocker Alice Cooper, Ozzy Osbourne never starred or made a cameo in a werewolf movie — though he did make a memorable “special appearance” in 1986’s Trick or Treat as an evangelist and moral crusader being interviewed on TV about “rock pornography.” Still, the late singer’s place in the lycanthropic hall of fame is secure thanks to the cover of his 1983 album Bark at the Moon and the accompanying video for the title track, both of which feature Ozzy in shaggy werewolf makeup designed by Greg Cannom, who has his own place in the pantheon courtesy of his work on Bram Stoker’s Dracula and Van Helsing.
While I didn’t see the “Bark at the Moon” music video at the time (MTV never played it when I was watching, and I watched a lot of MTV), I was intrigued by the album cover when a school friend played me the cassette one day and enthusiastically copied it for me. Alas, when my mother heard me playing the tape at home and asked what I was listening to (because it clearly wasn’t “Weird Al” Yankovic or the Ghostbusters soundtrack), she made me erase it, because all she knew about Ozzy Osbourne was one of his songs had inspired one of his fans to commit suicide, and his latest tape was therefore unsuitable for my impressionable ears. It would be years before I heard its like again, by which time Osbourne had become a household name for a different reason.
In the wake of Osbourne’s passing last month, I called up Bark at the Moon on streaming and listened to it for the first time in four decades, and also watched the “Bark at the Moon” video — his first, directed by Mike Mansfield — so I could review it for this very site. Made the same year as Michael Jackson’s Thriller, for which Greg Cannon helped Rick Baker transform the King of Pop into a werecat, “Bark” had a fraction of the budget, but still tries to tell a complete story within the confines of the music-video format. Along with the requisite shots of Osbourne’s band — including guitarist Jake E. Lee and bassist Bob Dailey, who co-wrote the song with him — during the instrumental passages, the video opens with some gothic horror touches, including a repeated shot of a pale-faced man in a black cloak, a group of mourners, and a brief shot of a skull. This is all but a prelude to the star’s entrance, however.
Bursting into a room filled with bubbling liquids in beakers and flasks, Osbourne holds a beaker in one hand and a brain in the other, a maniacal grin on his face. After he downs the concoction, his convulsions frighten his wife, who has him committed to an asylum, where he arrives in a straitjacket on the arms of two orderlies. There he’s put in a padded cell and subjected to electroshock treatments, but they fail to suppress the feral side his formula has unleashed since he flashes his fangs at the camera. There are also cutaways to Osbourne in his full werewolf makeup, but as the video continues, its story gets a little confused.
The confusion starts with the shot of a horse-drawn hearse bearing a black coffin, which Osbourne’s character is revealed to be inside. Standing over the open casket, his veiled wife drops rose petals on his corpse, which instantly appears decayed. Next he’s seen in a hallway with brightly lit doorways he can’t enter, then he’s being pursued through a candlelit basement by the rampaging were-Ozzy. (Talk about your classic split personality.) Before he can be caught, the pale-faced man in the cloak appears, keeping the beast at bay, and before we know it, a formally attired Osbourne is being walked out of the asylum by his doctor, apparently a changed man. Rejoining his wife, Osbourse looks up at the balcony, where the werewolf crouches, howling at him or, to put it another way, barking at the moon. Freeze-frame, fade-out. Rest in beast, Ozzy.
