Puddle of Mudd

“Psycho”

Dirs. The Goetz Brothers

Horror movies and post-grunge have a lot in common. Both require yelling and screaming in abundance. Both have a tendency to make people cringe. Neither genre has really produced anything genuinely original in over a decade. Perhaps these similarities explain why Puddle of Mudd’s new video combines the two genres so cohesively.

The story basically goes like this: Wes Scantlin, Mudd’s lead singer, drives down a dark road with several Scooby-Doo-esque characters. After running over Michael Myers from “Halloween” and Leatherface from “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre,” the group decides it might be a good idea to stay the night at the Bates Motel. They sprint past Kid Rock and Pamela Anderson and barricade themselves in a room.

After a female companion dies in a tragic banana-knife-shower-prank accident, Wes and crew evacuate the room and proceed to get kicked down a flight of stairs by an evil Paris Hilton.

Finally, just like the ending of Hitchcock’s “Psycho,” Wes runs into himself dressed as an old woman. Now we see why Scantlin’s been yelling the lyrics “schizophrenic psycho” over and over.

Wes Scantlin is indeed a master of homage: Some would say he’s been imitating a certain deceased, blond-haired songwriter from Seattle for his entire career.

This fact may explain why Puddle of Mudd’s tribute to horror movies is significantly more entertaining than the song itself.

Still, that’s not saying much.

—Jeff W. Feldman