The Monstrefact: The Werewolf Ozzy Osbourne

In this episode of STBYM’s The Monstrefact, Robert discusses the werewolf persona of late heavy metal icon Ozzy Osbourne, from his 1983 album “Bark at the Moon.”

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:03):
Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production of iHeartRadio.

Speaker 2 (00:10):
Hi, my name is Robert Lamb and this is The
Monster Fact, a short form series from Stuff to Blow
Your Mind, focusing on mythical creatures, ideas and monsters in time.
The world lost a true musical icon yesterday on July
twenty second, twenty twenty five, with the passing of Black

(00:30):
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

(00:50):
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,

(01:11):
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

(01:32):
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

(01:56):
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

(02:18):
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

(02:41):
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

(03:02):
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,

(03:26):
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

(03:47):
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

(04:09):
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

(04:32):
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,

(04:52):
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.

Speaker 1 (05:08):
Stuff to Blow Your Mind is a production of iHeartRadio.
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