The Monstrefact: The Werewolf Ozzy Osbourne

Sabbath frontman Ozzy Osbourne born nineteen forty eight. It's almost impossible to imagine rock music itself without the Oz Man's influence, much less downstream subgenres of heavy, doom and stone or metal, and so I figured it might be fitting to remember him here on The Monster Fact, following up recent explorations of the Werewolf with a look at his nineteen eighty

three hit Bark at the Moon. Now, we can certainly acknowledge that this song, the title track off Ozzy's third post Sabbath solo album, stands out as a prime example of his pivot from heavy metal and hard rock to a poppier, synth infused sound. The song was a hit, and today it easily stands out as one of the top tracks from his solo work. But I want to

mainly talk about that Werewolf. Yes, The album, single and music video all prominently feature Ozzy Osbourne in full magnificent were wolf makeup, created by special effects wizard Greg Cannon, who would go on to win an Oscar for his work on nineteen ninety two's bram Stoker's Dracula, which of

course also features an amazing lupine transformation. His credits also include nineteen eighty one's The Howling, nineteen eighty six is Vamp, and of course weird House cinema favorite Without Warning from nineteen eighty Werewolf. Ozzy is just so perfectly executed. We easily recognize the rocker through the hair, teeth and prosthetic facial features, and yet he looks believably like in topic, a physical representation of his wild man reputation and rock

music era. The music video, reportedly a difficult shoot, is a highly entertaining mashup of gothic hammer horror imagery Vetroom music video director Mike Mansfield filmed the production, which shot at England's Holloway Sanatorium, the same location used for numerous classic nineteen eighties music videos, including Alphaville's Forever Young and

Oh Bonnie Tyler's Total Eclipse of the Heart. It features Ozzy and his band, but I sadly can find nothing on the additional background actors that give it that hammer horror flavor. It's a music video, so it's more vibes than plot, but we might loosely connect the dots here. Victorian gentleman scientist Ozaman Diaz Osbourne, haunted by the pale faced specter of Death, seeks a formula that might unleash

his inner beast control it. It's uncertain what he aims for here, but the experiment results in his complete transformation into a rampaging wolfman. As his beloved watches on, there is no choice but to commit good Sir Osborne to a sanitarium, where the treatment seem to range from barking dog exposures to electro shock. In what may be a visual representation of this inner struggle, we see Cuman Osborne flee from his werewolf's self through the bowels of the sanatorium,

all while pale Death watches on. Eventually, he walks free through the gates of the sanitarium, smiling with his beloved, while his beast's self howls from the upper reaches of the sanitarium walls. Everyone seems pleased with this outcome, So perhaps the Beast truly is a thing of the past now, but we horror fans might reasonably have our doubts. Plus before the final struggle between beast and man, we see Osborne deceased in a casket and then reduced to bones

and ash by a priest's blessings. So does the characters separation from the Beast a her only in death or

does this represent something else. It's open to interpretation. The video plays with themes from various Gothic werewolf films, and there's a little Doctor Jacky will Mister Hyde thrown in for good measure, and in doing so, all of this invokes, at least playfully, very old and deep concepts of lacanthropy, the best deal inner self, the struggle between wildness and civilization, and the contradictory twin desires to both channel the inner

wolf and to exercise its influence. And of course it all takes on an additional layer of meaning given the well known biographical details and larger than life legends surrounding the legendary Ozzy Osbourne himself. May he rest in peace or run forever through the Fay Wilds beneath an everlasting full mood. Tune in for additional episodes of The Monster Factor, The Artifact or Animalius to Pendi Hum each week. As always, you can email us at contact at stuff to Blow your Mind dot com.