RZA Reveals The Deadly Twist Behind His “V/H/S/Mixtape” Short

RZA says the New York sounds he has long worked into his records helped shape a horror story about a producer whose hunt for the right sample turns deadly.

The Wu-Tang Clan co-founder broke down that connection in a new interview with Kyle Meredith.

His short, “Death Tone,” closes V/H/S/Mixtape, a film that makes music and sound the source of its scares.

“For me as a producer, I always incorporated police sirens, trains, thunder, lightning, like the sound of New York is all in my music,” RZA said.

He spent about four months working out the idea. At first, he considered a story with instruments made from human skin.

He eventually settled on a sound engineer who believes she can get the recording she needs from death itself. The producers gave him room to keep trying new ideas, he said, until he found one that fit the shoot’s schedule.

Neela Jolene plays an engineer trying to turn her late father’s instructions into a finished track. The work leads her to kill people and use the sounds in her music. It puts a gruesome cost on the quest for the perfect recording.

Getting that mix of music and horror right also meant finding an actor willing to go with RZA’s vision.

He also credited casting director Jeff Gafner with connecting him to the V/H/S team and bringing Jolene to his attention. RZA praised her willingness to commit to the role, including a scene that left her covered in stage blood.

“I felt she was very brave,” he said.

The film also brings him back to his Gravediggaz roots. RZA has traced ideas in the short to the group’s “1-800 Suicide.”

He previously connected that dark side of his music to his work with Flatbush Zombies when they teamed up in 2021.

Ernest Dickerson took another path in his own segment, bringing in Flying Lotus for help.

Dickerson wanted music that could sound alien, so he turned to the producer for a story built around a musical battle. His contribution follows a young filmmaker drawn toward a mysterious musician, with a plot Dickerson developed by combining two H.P. Lovecraft stories.

V/H/S/Mixtape began streaming on Shudder on October 9.