The link between Anthrax’s ‘Among The Living’ and ‘Poltergeist II’

There has always been a strong connection between horror movies and heavy metal music since the inception of the genre. Black Sabbath‘s name was inspired by a horror movie, and their decision to write songs with doomy lyrics was also influenced by the fact that people paid to be scared in movie theaters. That link continued during the next decades and there is an interesting connection between Anthrax’s album “Among the Living” and the classic horror movie “Poltergeist II”.

The link between Anthrax’s ‘Among The Living’ and ‘Poltergeist II’

Besides the title track, the album has famous tracks like “Indians”, “Caught In a Mosh” and “I Am the Law”.

Some Anthrax members like Scott Ian and Charlie Benante are big fans of horror movies and were part of a few films and documentaries about the genre. The interesting thing is that there is a connection between their 1987 album “Among The Living” and the classic horror movie “Poltergeist II: The Other Side” released in 1986.

There is a big similarity between the creepy movie character Reverend Henry Kane, portrayed by the actor Julian Beck and the weird man on the cover of the album of the Thrash Metal group.

The band’s drummer Charlie Benante, who was the responsible one for choosing most of the album covers of their albums, revealed that the movie was an inspiration. He said that in an interview with Robert V Galluzzo in 2008.

The “Among The Living” thing, which was pretty cool. The cool thing with that is I had this concept of this cover that was similar to the Stephen King story (The Stand), and Scott had these lyrics. But we didn’t talk about it together.”

Charlie Benante continued:

“I just told him the concept, and he was like ‘That’s weird! Because I have lyrics that I’m basing on the Stephen King book!’ And it just ties itself together. I remember at the time, we saw this movie Poltergeist (II) and the guy scared the hell out of us, his face was just so scary!”

“We just wanted (the cover guy) to look like that, and he’s ‘among the living’, ya know? So, that’s how that came about. And then I totally changed things up for the next record with the big yellow and red thing, but I’d like to forget that one. (Laughs)” Charlie Benante said.

The album cover was made by Don Brautigam, who was also responsible for Metallica’s “Master of Puppets”. One year later, in 1988, he also made the cover for Anthrax’s “State of Euphoria”.

The movie and the album

Directed by Brian Gibson, Poltergeist II shows the Freeling family in a new house, once again facing evil supernatural forces. Like the first movie, the sequel was also successful at the box office. It cost about 19 million dollars and made over 75 million dollars.

The Anthrax album was also commercially successful for the band. It was their breakthrough record that made them finally leave the small clubs and play in arenas and stadiums. It was critically acclaimed and helped the band to be mentioned among the Big Four of Thrash Metal. The record was produced by the legendary Eddie Kramer, who worked with Hendrix, Kiss, Alice Cooper and more.

Benante reinforced the message that Among The Living was about good and evil in an interview with PureGrainAudio in 2016. Benante said: “Poltergeist had a very strong visual image to me and I liked the way it looked. I was always into horror, and ‘Among The Living’ was basically about good and evil. It was just about how much evil there is amongst us.”