I had a friend in college who would throw a Halloween party every year just so he could pull out his prized possession: a VHS recording of Screamin Jay Hawkins performing "I Put A Spell On You." We didn't know the date of the recording, but the camp weirdness seemed to place it in the mid-'70s. It was spooky, but it's rarefied existence made it practically terrifying.

This was back when cultural objects were described as "hard to find."

I recently checked YouTube to see if it was there, and quelle horreur!, there it is, with 1.8 million views.

You'll find it in there with other freaky musical obscurantism, like Tom Waits "I Don't Wanna Grow Up" and Bonnie Tyler's "Total Eclipse of the Heart" (seriously, that video still freaks me out).

Much like Ozzy Osbourne's "Bark at the Moon," those videos still have the texture of "old" — grainy waves of VHS scarring, which make them even more frightening.

More recent attempts at horror — say, Marilyn Manson's "Sweet Dreams" or Aphex Twin's "Come To Daddy" or Kanye West's "Monster" — use HD realism and high color saturation to freak you out.

We made it all the way through this post without linking to "Thriller."

Oops. Boo.