Zombies Attack BU—in Dear Abbeys New Music Video | BU Today

Forget “Thriller”—this Halloween, BU’s only all-male a cappella group, The Dear Abbeys, has resurrected the Weather Girls 1982 classic “It’s Raining Men” in a campy, zombie-themed music video. Group members transform into singing zombies in their nearly seven-minute music video, which was released earlier this month (the single can also be found on Spotify and Apple Music).

The video kicks off with three friends watching a breaking news broadcast about the Dear Abbeys, who are causing a viral outbreak that’s taking over the world. As tensions rise, singing zombies descend on their house as the friends make a run for it. 

Expect lots of splattering blood and over-the-top gore. 

The video’s origins trace back to fall 2024, when Abbey members and friends Ty Renna (COM’25) and Oscar Soucy (COM’25) were studying abroad in London. The film and television majors (both now work in the commercial film industry) had previously worked on Dear Abbeys video projects and had brainstormed one final video idea for the group before they graduated. 

Their thoughts turned to “It’s Raining Men,” a track the Abbeys had already recorded professionally as a single. Renna, who wrote, directed, coproduced, and edited the video, says he wanted a “gothic, kind of dark theme.” Soucy, the project’s coproducer and director of photography, pitched a story about a zombie apocalypse, blending the song’s upbeat pop energy with dark visuals.

“Honestly, it just kind of felt like a funny antithesis—the song is very fun, but also, there is a storm coming and there is something in the air,” Soucy says. “I thought that the imagery of all of these things coming together would make a lot of sense.”

The duo pitched the concept to the group, who definitely weren’t expecting that their next production would resemble the TV series The Walking Dead. “But these guys have pushed us into new realms we didn’t think were possible for all-male a cappella, and so we trusted their vision and told them to run with it,” says Ethan Wanner (CAS’26), the group’s current president and the song’s musical arranger. “And they did.”

The song itself had been pitched in 2022, but initially rejected because members at the time thought it would be too difficult to arrange in a cappella format. Wanner disagreed and pitched it again the next semester. After the group agreed, he worked on arranging it in summer 2023. 

Wanner drew inspiration from various a cappella and pop renditions, he says, but took bits and pieces from everything and made it his own. “I wanted parts to be really dramatic and almost a little bit cheesy,” fitting the song’s original vibe, he says. “There are a few moments where Ty [Renna, on Tenor 1] sings ‘Hallelujah!,’ and I told him to go crazy on the vibrato there,” he explains. “It has to sound almost a bit corny. People like us because we don’t take ourselves too seriously. Obviously, we’re very serious about everything we do behind the scenes, but the way that we present ourselves is not super pretentious.”

The apocalyptic scenes were filmed at Soucy’s house in Westwood, Mass. “I couldn’t believe my dad said yes,” Soucy says. “I had to call my neighbors to ask if it was OK that a bunch of guys dressed like zombies were going to run around their yards at night. They were surprisingly fine with it.”

The night of filming was an epic undertaking, members recall, with freezing temperatures being the biggest hurdle, since some of the members were wearing very little clothing (“one guy was just in a headband and a pair of red shorts,” Wanner says). Key to keeping the talent warm were space blankets, typically given to runners and athletes after they finish a race to ward off hypothermia. 

“This was no small production,” Wanner says. “The house was absolutely filled with people behind the scenes. Multiple camera operators. Oscar [Soucy] was an actor on screen, and then he was going back and forth between the camera making sure the shot was set up.” 

They got a boost from outside collaborators too. Former Abbeys president and production designer Matt Michaud (COM’23) helped achieve the “Thriller”-esque aesthetic, while director of photography Jake Abramowitz, a horror makeup specialist, ensured that the special effects were on point. Rachel Neil (COM’25), former executive general manager of BUTV (the College of Communication’s student-run television station), helped them shoot in the studio. 

The reception to the video has been great, the producers say, adding that it has already surpassed the view counts and social media interactions compared to their last music video, made in 2023.

The whole production was an epic undertaking, but the Abbeys agree: it was worth it. “It created a larger-than-life core memory for the guys that were involved in it,” Renna says, “and also hopefully will inspire new members for years to come.”