Ryan Coogler’s hugely successful Sinners is the latest in many vampire movies. However, the vampires in this genre-hopping horror movie stand out in the crowded space.
Vampires are one of cinema’s oldest baddies and are still in popular demand; this is shown in the small release gap between Sinners and Robert Eggers’ remake of Nosferatu. But while the latter leaned more into the traditional Eurocentric vampire canon that has dominated cinema for generations, Sinners adopts a different lens to make its vampires stand out.
Set in America’s Great Depression, with a predominantly black cast led by Michael B. Jordan, Sinners reimagines vampire mythology through acknowledging African American historical and cultural roots. In doing so, Sinners is less about vampires and more about community, racism in America, family and rebellion.
Coogler has tackled issues of race and discrimination before. His Best Picture-nominated superhero movie, Black Panther (2018), boldly engaged with the global oppression of black people, making it unique from fellow Marvel movies. He does the same for Sinners in its respective genre.
Rather than emulate the gothic Victorian aesthetic, the movie relishes in the environment of the Jim Crow South. We see this when twin brothers, Stag and Smoke (both played by B. Jordan) buy an unused barn from white businessman Hogwood (David Maldonado) to set up their juke joint; Hogwood is visibly unfriendly toward his black business partners.
All of this is before we see even one vampire, including principal antagonist Remmick (Jack O’Connell). When the vampires do appear, they are not as hostile to the main characters as people like Hogwood. Remmick even willingly informs Smoke that Hogwood is the leader of the local Klu Klux Klan and intends to attack the brothers after their joint’s opening night. This integration of social commentary becomes fundamental to how the film reimagines vampire mythology, using horror tropes to bring historical realities to light.
Sinners is also about family and finding a connection. The main characters are established to have a long history together, largely through their community. This creates an even more meaningful experience when they come together for the opening night of the twins’ blues-led juke joint.
Blues music is a driving force for this theme. Stag and Smoke’s musically gifted cousin Sammie (Miles Colton) becomes the highlight of the night as his music seems to spark a connection between the community and their ancestors. This is displayed in a visually striking montage that takes audiences through the generations of black immigrants in America.
Coogler not only does this to celebrate culture, but he also provides an unexpected link between the vampires and the black community. Remmick is fascinated by the blues music and wants to use Sammie to reconnect with his ancestors. He also desires to convert the characters at the joint into vampires to make his own community. There is no sense of discrimination, as Remmick calls his would-be followers “one big family”.
Sinners also explores loneliness. We see that in Remmick, but also in main characters like Smoke and Stack and their push-pull relationships with the respective women in their lives: Mary (Hailee Steinfeld) and Annie (Wunmi Mosaku).
The most significant connection between the vampires and the black community is that both are symbols of ‘othering’—treated as intrinsically different and alien. The black characters find this alienation through the Jim Crow South setting, which infamously mandated racial segregation in all public facilities, hence the setup of the juke joint, which is opened exclusively to the community.
The vampires share this by always needing to be invited into someone’s home. The idea is first seen in Remmick’s introduction. He knocks frantically on the door of his first two victims, Joan (Lola Kirke) and Bert (Peter Dreimanis), as he runs from Native American hunters hot on his trail and tries to avoid the burn of the sun. Yet despite his desperation, he does not force his way in. Rather, he waits for the couple to invite him in. They eventually do, due to them being white supremacists, allowing him to convert them with the classic vampire neck bite.
Through mythology and pop culture, vampires have been used as a symbol for ‘othering’. This is due to their connection with disease and the fragility of life. Moreover, they are a representation of the ‘abject’, which, in critical theory, is the state of being cast off and separated from norms and rules, especially on the scale of society.
According to Julia Kristeva, who contributed an influential overview in her 1980 work Powers of Horror: An Essay on Abjection, the most extreme example of the abject is the corpse. Kristeva describes the generally repelled reaction to the corpse as a response to its violation of the boundary between life and death, making us acknowledge our mortality. Vampires, essentially living corpses, fit Kristeva’s description.
Characters like Dracula, Carmilla, and Varney embody this theme of being ‘different’. Their secretive and irregular existence also suggests a rebellion against societal standards and a challenge to established norms.
This sense of difference and rebellion links the vampires with the black community in Sinners. Each of the characters has a desire to break free from the restraints of segregated Southern America. Smoke and Stag wish to become successful businessmen, regardless of the white supremacist competition. Sammie wishes to leave the plantation and become a successful blues musician. These characters’ dreams and motivations challenge societal norms and invoke rebellion and although many of the characters’ fates are tragic, their ambition is the movie’s powerful message against racist societies that promote othering.
Although films involving the blood-sucking monsters have long used metaphors for various social anxieties, Sinners stands out by blending vampire mythology in ways that have rarely, if ever, been done before.
In the process of making his first supernatural horror movie, Ryan Coogler still commits to addressing issues of race and othering, making Sinners far from a conventional vampire movie. Furthermore, Coogler’s unexpected association between the main characters and Remmick makes it far more unique among the many cinematic interpretations of vampires.
By blending the horror genre with American racial history, Sinners has a distinctive voice from what typically makes a vampire film. Given its success of massing $161.6 million worldwide, Sinners has really shaken things up.
Words by Joseph Jenkinson
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