These days, the home video rental industry may be standing on fewer steady legs than one of the rotting corpses in Jackson’s video. Still, the once burgeoning industry has ‘Thriller’ to thank for the success they had.

Fans wanted to watch the video in their home, but VHS tapes were expensive to own. So video rental chains started popping up to lend copies of the tape and eventually other movies for a much smaller price. Then, Landis said, a video retailer wanted to sell the video on VHS. Landis didn’t think the deal would be a moneymaker but he gave the plan his blessing. The VHS version sold over a million copies in the US alone.