![]() Nowhere is safe and no one can be trusted. And as Dewey, Sidney and Tatum get out of their car and walk down the deserted road likening their empty town to the movies, it’s clear that the demon the song is describing is as much an infector of fear as it is an inflictor of it.įrom that moment on, the killer is everywhere. Half way through the film, Woodsboro is transformed by such a person. ![]() A nigh invisible cog in the vast machine of his design, you are his victim, held tightly under his blood red thumb. He’s in your head and on the TV screen- a ghost, a god, a guru but a man all the same. The lyrics promise that you’ll see the man in your nightmares, dreams and appearing out of nowhere. Despite the sun shining brightly in the sky, a woman gathers up a picnic basket and her child before hurrying off while a nearby coffee shop empties as a sign which reads “Closed for curfew” hangs shakily on the glass door. Just after the scene in which Randy and Billy accuse one another of being the killer in the video store, a hard cut depicts a man locking up his shop and hurrying to his car. The second time the song plays, it’s for a longer duration. Immediately, the song associates itself with the dark underbelly residing beneath the bright, sunny exterior of the American suburbs and the disturbing ease by which its inhabitants transform real life horror into fleeting entertainment. Occurring moments after Sidney’s late night phone call from the killer while she spends the night at Tatum’s house, the shot opens with a billowing American flag being hoisted as skateboarders cruise the streets and people bustle about the town.Īfter the loud clang of a bell and a jazzy, downbeat riff, the image transitions back to Tatum’s kitchen where she comforts Sidney while a news broadcast covers the savage rape and torture of Maureen Prescott, Sidney’s mother. “Red Right Hand” first resounds as brief background music over a wide, sweeping shot of Woodsboro. It’s a perfect marriage of complimentary terror, advancing the whole to new levels of depth, meaning and fear. Like the films, “Red Right Hand” evolves, physically and diegetically, even landing as the concluding element of the initial trilogy of films. With a beat that resonates like the quick, piercing thrust of a knife and lyrics that rumble like the distant thunder announcing a downpour fast approaching, the careful placement of the song throughout the series both announces and ensures the weight of its sometimes broad tonal shifts. Reinterpreted by Nick Cave and Mick Harvey for their 1994 album Let Love in, “Red Right Hand” became the anthem of a mysterious presence, a force like a gathering storm whose terrifying machinations will ultimately lead to cataclysmic ruination for any soul unlucky enough to cross their shadowy path. While it only plays for what amounts to a handful of minutes over the course of five films, Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds’ “Red Right Hand” is as instrumental to the atmosphere of the Scream franchise as the looming threat of those who hide behind the trademark white mask caught in its silent howl.įirst coined by 17th century poet John Milton in his 1667 epic Paradise Lost, the phrase “red right hand” was initially used to denote the wrath fueled vengefulness of God. The resulting franchise encompassed a host of familiar tropes of both the slasher and “whodunit” variety, comprising ringing phones accompanied by mysterious callers, self-aware and snarky young adults and rules to survive by that, perhaps by design, often don’t hold all that true in the end.īut just as important as any recurring narrative beat or cameoing survivor is a song. Spotify: rewired the horror audience in 1996, exploring anew the connective tissue that bridged the history of the genre with its future patrons and purveyors. YouTube: /channel/UCvLO0eZ7UcTmN24uM1fedTg ![]()
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