The Parcels music video Withorwithout initially gained attention when it premiered because it starred movie star Milla Jovovich, and for its The Strangers-inspired home invasion narrative. By the end, it became even more of a water cooler item.
Spoilers for Withorwithout below.
After the viewer witnesses a group of masked home invaders, played by the Parcels band members, murder a husband (Carsten Norgaard) and brutalize his wife (Jovovich), the video rewinds and plays again. The second time, we see there were no masked men and Jovovich just murders her husband and fakes her own injuries.
Jovovich thought of the twist because she just couldn’t accept the Parcel boys as killers.
“The boys from Parcels are all of 21 years old,” Jovovich said. “They’re really young so when I saw this concept that they’re the killers, my instinct as a parent immediately sent red flags up. I was like, ‘You can’t be killers. You’re sweet boys.’ Funnily enough, their record company couldn’t agree more. I was like, ‘I should be the killer.’ I’m sort of known for that anyway and by the way, it would take a lot more than five boys to break into my house. I felt like this could be a really interesting springboard.”
As executive producer of Withorwithout, Jovovich found director Benjamin Howdeshell, who was a family friend and had worked with Paul W.S. Anderson as an assistant editor on several Resident Evil films and Death Race. Anderson began the script, later finished by Mike Doyle, and Jovovich found the hair and makeup crew.
“When I called Ben and he saw the materials that they had sent over that was a lot of Strangers and stuff, we talked about the particular concept that it all happened in her imagination,” Jovovich continued. “This was in some sense her alibi, which seemed like a really great place to start. Then Ben had a good friend named Mike. Paul started working on this script originally and sent Ben his opening. Then they worked together as well so it was a nice collaboration of really great artists and people that love the band, and people that are really into horror and scary movies just trying to do something really fun and creative.”
Withorwithout filmed for two nights at a house in the Hollywood Hills. All the blood is CGI because they could not stain the owners’ walls. And in the end, Jovovich would rather play the killer than let the innocent boys be murderers.
“It was my idea just like instinctual idea as a parent that I just couldn’t think about the fact that Parcels were really killers,” she said. “I love those boys. I couldn’t stomach them actually being murderers in a movie, even if it’s pretend. I was like no, no, no, no, no, you guys can’t be real killers.”