No one can recreate classic horror T&A for a music video like a crew of burlesque dancers. And no one can carve out a few chills in mid-August like a New Englander. So really, the new release from Parlour Bells was set up to succeed slay from the start.
“Slasher Movie Weather” is the Boston band’s new tune, music video, and season-shifter from their forthcoming EP To Be Or Not To Behave. The release is a tribute to ’80s slashers in all their gore-coated glory, battered in Parlour Bells’ ominous anthem-rock. The accompanying visual centers around — what else? — a gaggle of women on a camping trip, which becomes a grisly hunting trip for a killer lurking in the woods. To add some carnal flair to lyrics like “Topless on the swing set / She was headless by the sunset,” the band tapped a group of burlesque dancers to star in the video.
Honey Pie, the wife of Parlour Bells frontman Goddamn Glenn, led the ladies and co-directed the visual; you could say it’s a role she’s been dying to play her entire life.
“Growing up on those movies made me who I am today, where I want to be scantily-clad and I want to see other women-scantily clad,” Honey Pie says. “I always wanted to be the girl in the ’80s music video and in the horror movies, and now I get to be both… Over the years, Glenn and I have watched horror movies together and would always imagine our friends as some of these characters.”
The video is a full circle moment for the couple, who collaborated in 2013 when Honey Pie appeared in Parlour Bells’ first music video, “Bachelor Hours”. With “Slasher Movie Weather,” they christen their romantic and artistic relationship once again with blood, guts, and a hearty dash of camp.
“Since then [filming ‘Bachelor Hours’], we got married and always provide each other creative feedback on our respective projects,” Glenn adds. “Her opinion means everything to me, so it feels so perfect to present this new video as a team effort under both our names. She always says that, together, we’re unstoppable. When we co-create things like this, I know she’s right about that.”
Carve out some time for “Slasher Movie Weather” below.
***