The Antichrist Superstar Official Video: The Controversy Continues.

Earlier we joked about 6/19, or June 19th. What happened? Did the World end, the Apocalypse rising?

Nope, just a video, a rare Marilyn Manson production of the song "Antichrist Superstar" directed E. Elias Merhige and produced by Henry S. Rosenthal, circa 08/17/1996.

But who are these people anyway?

Merhige is best known to mainstream audiences for the 2000 film Shadow of the Vampire, and to underground audiences for the cult-classic 1991 film Begotten.

He´s also credited for directing "Cryptorchid", which cinematography is similar to that of "Antichrist Superstar".

"Cryptorchid" was included as a bonus material to the DVD release of Lest We Forget back in 2004.

Henry S. Rosenthal has produced a great deal of horror films as well.

The few commercial videos that were made for the album "Antichrist Superstar" were:

- The Beautiful People, directed by Floria Sigismondi.

- Tourniquet, also directed by Floria Sigismondi

- Man That You Fear, directed by Wiz.

All of these were highly ambitious productions, which later on was nominated for important awards, in the case of The Beautiful People.

The question is: why did Cryptorchid and Antichrist Superstar get shelved? Are these videos connected in some way other than their aesthetic?

Some "authorities" advised us not to discuss too much about this leaked forgotten production, but we´ll go ahead and build the excitement.

ACSS was entirely filmed in black and white. It is also reminiscent of "Cryptorchid" and contains footage from Merhige´s film "Begotten":

An excerpt from an interview made for Mansonusa.com "Dramatic New Scenes For Celebritarian Needs", November 3rd 2005:

Q: The Internet Movie Database lists "Anti-Christ Superstar" as part of your filmography. A few names are associated with this film other than your own. E. Elias Merhige is cited as the director; Roger Michael Mayer as the Torchbearer; and Texas Terri as the Angel of Death. What was the concept or story behind this video and did anything ever transpire from the project? Why was it never released?

MM: Elias was someone I had contacted. I talked to him the day after I saw his film Begotten, which is one of the strangest and scariest films I’ve seen and I wanted him to do a video for cryptorchid and I came to Los Angeles and I did that.

He also wanted to film a video for Antichrist Superstar; but he wanted to use a lot of footage that he had already compiled, so he shot the material with me. Then he put it together with some other stuff.

He used a lot of military footage from different countries, different wars, that really went for the fascist aspect of the song and I wasn’t quite sure that it represented the criticism that it needed to, but it wasn’t ultimately my opinion that mattered because the record company was appalled by it. That’s not to say it won’t be seen, but I’m not sure if he ever had a fair chance of finishing it because of the record company. I was very pleased with cryptorchid because it’s a beautiful song and I wanted to see his imagery involved in it.

And there you have it, this material apparently was rejected by Manson´s label at the time, Interscope Records and now that the band claims to have more artistic freedom it makes sense to drop these ´bombs´.

THE CONTROVERSY

Forget about what´s in the "Antichrist Superstar" video, it´s the fact whether you should legally watch it or not.

Rumor: "Accidentally" it was posted on marilynmanson.com around June 19th 2010 and some hours later it was mysteriously removed. By that time, it was already popping up on several websites, even on You Tube.

Accidents Can Happen, Only To Marilyn Manson?

During the promotion of Year Zero, one of the latest Nine Inch Nails albums used clever strategies to make some buzz:

An entire campaign based on the ARG concept was built around the album's story and fans were bombarded in multiple ways; the world of online was used in a massive way, when the band began to 'leak' songs via USB cards left in bathrooms at their shows in Europe. Clues were printed on t-shirts, messages began to pop up online and a frenzy was created before the album was even released. (Source:  http://www.squidoo.com/trentreznor )

And what about the latest craze built around the new iPhone G4 "lost" prototype conducted by the Gizmodo Team? Another accident? Nope, an intentional premature ´leak´, which could probably affect Apple´s sales greatly.

So you decide, was the "Antichrist Superstar" video ´leak´ planned by MM himself? If that´s the case then you´re free to go, but if it´s not, then we will gladly remove all the links the video...