[1][2] The band, however, have denied this, telling The Guardian in 2024, "Everyone thinks Evil is about serial killers but it isn't at all.

The music video, directed by Charlie White, shows a life-sized animatronic puppet who travels via ambulance to a hospital emergency room following a car crash, being examined by real-life actors as he sings the lyrics to the song before breaking into a frantic dance on the operating table.

White listened to the song on a loop for an entire weekend and hired Spectral Motion, the practical effects team who worked on films such as Hellboy and Fantastic Four, to create the puppet.

Regardless, the puppet received its own cult following and was named "Norman" by fans on Interpol's online message board shortly after the video premiered.

In 2014, it was spotted in an online auction in which it was simply listed as "animatronic creepy ghoul puppet from music video".

In 2019, it was purchased from another online auction by artist John Kolbek, who was able to successfully raise money from a GoFundMe campaign called "Let's save Norman!"