DAYWALKER! music video review: school project production forcing hardcore themes

After a five-day-delay and a series of cryptic tweets from Rachel “Valkyrae” Hofstetter, the music video for DAYWALKER! from Machine Gun Kelly featuring Corpse Husband AKA CORPSE finally released on 18th March.

While the song is fairly short yet accelerating and makes you want to punch a plushie kitten right in the face, the music video lands nowhere close to the single's quality.

Directed by Sam Cahill and Machine Gun Kelly and with Valkyrae starring as CORPSE, there are more lowlights than highlights leaving us wishing for something more from the world-class collaboration.

From the get-go, the video got off on the wrong foot, mimicking the lyrics’ brutal fight scene in something that looks like it came out of an amateur wrestling promotion.

(Picture: YouTube)

The music video is sequenced by Roman numerals that don't help the storyline or narrative or script to save its life.

Followed by a rather awkward psycho character and an awful blood animation added in post, MGK’s real blood came dripping from his hand later in the video in a forced attempt to make the scene seem dangerous or hardcore.

In what looked like a five-man crew in Valkyrae’s behind-the-scenes vlog (most likely due to COVID restrictions), the decision to make her play CORPSE without his iconic mask on so she could mouth the words was an icky one.

Valkyrae in a sex shop latex bodysuit and two or three chains, without the mask and with one special FX contact lens is the poor man’s version of Corpse Husband -- like a newcomer cosplay artist trying to do him for the first time.

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The direction her CORPSE portrayal was given definitely did not help the performance, either.

In a further attempt to hide CORPSE’s identity, Valkyrae’s portrayal with a fluffy intension to intimidate, a stare accompanied by giggling as she recites the gory lyrics makes the performance a fiasco in and of itself.

This isn’t Machine Gun Kelly’s first director credit either, having had the role for the first time back in his 2015 music video “A Little More” and in last year’s MOD SUN punk-rock single “KARMA”.

MGK went as far as to direct Downfalls High, a movie based on his 2020 project Tickets to my Downfall. All directing gigs were praised and well-received, so we don’t really know where to point to for this swing-and-a-miss of a project.

In hindsight, the single works in so many ways and is a great addition to both Kells’ and CORPSE’s discographies, but the music video does not hold a candle to what the unlikely duo accomplished in the booth.

While the reception has been great by all three parties’ stans, this is a hard pass of a project as we recommend music streaming services to help the song rather than play its try-hard, forced hardcore attempt of a music video.