Why SINNERS Is Doing So Well: Ryan Coogler's History Meets Horror (& A Hell of a Dance Scene)

Why Sinners Is Doing So Well: Ryan Coogler’s Horror Meets History & A Hell of a Dance Scene

Welcome to MsMojo, and today we’re sinking our teeth into “Sinners.” A few spoilers will follow.


For all of the online chatter demanding fresh ideas, IP fuels the box office. When an original project does come along, audiences don’t always show up. With “A Minecraft Movie” topping the charts two weeks in a row, the argument for originality grows harder to justify. During its third weekend, though, “Minecraft” fell behind another Warner Bros. film, Ryan Coogler’s genre-bending vampire picture, “Sinners.” Taking in $48 million, “Sinners” had the best opening weekend for an original movie since 2019’s “Us.” On Saturday alone, 61% of patrons purchased tickets on the same day. With encouraging walk-up business, positive word of mouth, and an “A” CinemaScore (a first for a horror movie), “Sinners” should have lengthy legs heading toward its break-even point of $170–185 million.


Along with Christopher Nolan, Greta Gerwig, and Jordan Peele, Ryan Coogler is a director whose name can officially sell a movie. Following his debut “Fruitvale Station,” Coogler directed three franchise pictures - all critical and financial hits. One even got a Best Picture nomination and made over a billion dollars. As great as “Creed” and the “Black Panther” movies are, Coogler was eager to produce a genre picture that wasn’t part of an established brand. “Sinners” is Coogler’s blank check movie. It’s paying off for him, the studio, and audiences. The film’s success isn’t a huge surprise, as horror is among the few genres that still pack theaters. Most of those films didn’t have a roughly $100 million price tag, however.


“Sinners” isn’t strictly a horror film either. Coogler drew from works of terror like “Salem’s Lot,” “The Thing,” and “The Twilight Zone,” specifically the episode “The Last Rites of Jeff Myrtlebank.” Yet, Coogler also pulled from the Coen brothers and - believe it or not - “Puss in Boots: The Last Wish.” Look into Death’s eyes and you’ll see the parallels. Then there’s Robert Rodriguez, whose “From Dusk till Dawn” similarly blended crime with vampires. Coogler was just as inspired by Rodriguez’s “The Faculty,” which merged horror and sci-fi. Coogler puts his own spin on horror, fusing it with period drama, gangsters, and - above all else - music. “Sinners” isn’t a musical in the traditional sense, but music is at the root of the film’s central themes.


While Coogler said he’s been “trying to make this movie forever,” it started to take shape during the production of “Creed.” Coogler’s Uncle James had been diagnosed with cancer, although he maintained contact with his nephew via voice notes, sending motivational words whenever he was homesick. During “Creed’s” post-production, James passed away. Coogler felt guilty that he wasn’t there when his uncle died, compelling him to go home in more ways than one. James was from Mississippi, which provides the backdrop of “Sinners” during the Jim Crow era. Just as integral to shaping the narrative, James introduced Coogler to the blues. Coogler once thought of the blues as “old man music.” After losing his uncle, though, the blues allowed Coogler to reconnect with him.
James and the blues remained on Coogler’s mind while making “Wakanda Forever,” a film about grief. This provided a natural segue to “Sinners,” Coogler’s love letter to his family, the blues, and genre filmmaking. Although his uncle and grandmother were from Mississippi, much of Coogler’s family left the South during the Great Migration. Many African-Americans understandably moved to avoid suffering and pursue better lives. African-American history will forever be rooted in the South, however. Mississippi, for example, gave us the Delta blues. Through “Sinners,” Coogler sought to learn more about a piece of his family’s history that had been left behind. He traveled to Mississippi with composer Ludwig Göransson, who brought his father along for the ride. The trip was eye-opening for all of them.


Coogler walked away feeling closer to his family, no longer separated by time or age. It was as if the blues had conjured his uncle’s spirit. This is reflected in the film’s most talked-about sequence, where Miles Caton’s Sammie summons musical spirits across space and time. In what Coogler describes as “The Surreal Montage,” Black artists ranging from jazz, to rap, to funk, to Traditional West African music are unified in perfect harmony. Through this transcendent oner, masterfully short by Autumn Durald Arkapaw, we see the past, present, and future of music under the juke joint’s burning roof. Of course, this also serves as a siren to Jack O’Connell’s Remmick, an Irish vampire who seeks to drain the power of Sammie’s music for himself.


One can draw parallels to cultural appropriation, mirroring how numerous white artists have adopted music of the African diaspora, in turn erasing its origins. Although Remmick wants his stories, he also sees Sammie’s powers as a way to reconnect with his own people. Remmick may be evil, but Coogler is a big fan of Irish folk music, which he affectionately works into the plot through the vampires. “Sinners” thus avoids turning one community into the villain. Rather, the true enemy here is conformity - be it a horde of vampires sharing a hive mind or a hate group like the Ku Klux Klan. Our heroes aren’t just fighting for self-preservation, but the survival of their community and individual identities.


With a title like “Sinners,” religious allegories are also prevalent. After Sammie survives the hellish night, his preacher father asks him to renounce his godless music. Sammie can’t, seeing organized religion as another shade of conformity. That doesn’t mean the film is anti-religion. Christian symbols like holy water and crosses are often used to fend off movie vampires. In “Sinners,” the heroes fight off the vampires through hoodoo, which Wunmi Mosaku’s Annie practices. Michael B. Jordan’s Smoke is skeptical about the occult. As he takes his dying breath, though, it’s suggested that Smoke will join Annie and their child in the afterlife. Meanwhile, Smoke’s brother Stack and Hailee Steinfeld’s Mary will continue to walk the earth as vampires, forever between life and death.


By the end, Sammie is the only major character who isn’t either dead or undead. Yet, his music will make him immortal even after he passes. Sammie’s guitar becomes his cross - it’s something he must bear, but it can also be used as an instrument of inspiration. Coogler put much of his own family into the film’s characters. Stack and Smoke, for example, contain traces of his Uncle Rod and Uncle Mark. Sammie, however, may be based on blues legend Robert Leroy Johnson. There’s an old fable that Jonson met the devil at a crossroads. As the devil tunes his guitar, Johnson trades his soul to become a master of the blues. Where Johnson makes a deal with the devil, Sammie forges his own path.


Hollywood should do the same, not only taking more chances on original concepts, but ones that are personal to the filmmakers. That’s not to say every auteur-driven film can perform as well as “Sinners.” If the reception to Coogler’s film demonstrates anything, though, it’s that audiences are thirsty for a fresh sound. “Sinners” combines the new and old to create something that’ll still be talked about generations from now. Just as Sammie’s music awakens musical voices across history, “Sinners” took us back to a time when the industry wasn’t so hesitant toward non-IP pitches. It also provided a glimpse of what cinema can be if only more artists like Coogler were given the opportunity to tell their stories.


What did you think of “Sinners?” Let us know in the comments.