Warning: Spoilers Ahead! Please Go Watch This Masterpiece Of A Film!
Director Ryan Coogler’s newest hit film, Sinners, is a Southern gothic, historical-fiction horror musical set in the Jim Crow atmosphere in 1932 within the Mississippi Delta. His direction captures the essence of deep historical realities, supernatural elements of Vampires, and complete Southern symbolism to deliver a thought-provoking narrative.
Since the release of Sinners on April 18th, 2025, Coogler created a modernized immersion of different ancestral histories, while he focused on his lineage. He drew inspiration from his family history from the deep Southern part of the United States. Particularly, his Uncle James, who was from Mississippi, introduced him (young Ryan Coogler) to blues music. This personal connection deeply captures the tone of the film’s setting and important theme, which is sourced from American history embedded in the South and hidden in the shadows of colonial and post-Civil War history.
What Is A Sinner ANd why vampires?
First, let’s break down the term: SINNER.
Sin, in short, means “evil doings.” Coogler made it the title because in each of the main characters and within the main plot, there are memories and emotions that they would rather forget. Coogler incorporates blues music to serve as a ghostly reminder of what was meant to be buried and forgotten; instead, it awakens the past, present, and future.
Now let’s take a look at what VAMPIRES are and their importance to this story.
So if sin means “evildoings,” then vampires are just as simple as an undead creature that feeds off the life force of a living thing and needs to avoid sunlight. The vampire attacks are meant to reflect historical and or institutional racism that Black individuals faced in the South in the early 1930s. The blend of history and horror led to making an ordinary vampire a powerful tool for highlighting how white individuals felt as if they had the right to erase Black identity and oppress them to the bottom of the social hierarchy.
The most southern place on earth: the Mississippi Delta
This film is set in the early 1930s, during the full enforcement of Jim Crow laws. Originally, Jim Crow sparked as a highly racist character (portrayed by Thomas D. Rice), eventually, it evolved into an anti-Black way of life in the United States. According to the Jim Crow Museum, the policies that echoed white supremacy were deemed under the American Christian Doctrine, which is an ideology with a dark past sourced from Rudyard Kipling’s White Man’s Burden poem.
Coogler invites the audience to confront heavy yet realistic racial terror, emphasizing the threat of violence that allowed for white racial dominance to get a grip on Black life. Coogler incorporates the Jim Crow legacy into a new perspective on how Black trauma is being sensationalized in cinema.
The setting of this film is in the Mississippi Delta, which is rich in American History. After the rise of slavery abolition, white plantation owners found other sources of slave labor. Chinese immigrants were the replacement for Black slave workers. But they were socially forced into the racial category of “other.” The Chinese survived in the Delta by operating grocery stores in a bi-segregated society.
This film also nods to the Choctaw playing a major role in the minority population in the South. Choctaws are the largest Native tribe in the Mississippi region. The Indian Removal Act in the 1830s displaced many Choctaw individuals, creating the Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians. Coogler highlights their resilience and role in the region’s agricultural history.
Five Important Characters In Sinners
Sammie Moore: This character, played by Miles Caton, is the main protagonist who holds himself to the power of music via the connection of the past and present through blues and gospel music. Similar to the Greek myth of Orpheus and his lyre, Sammie uses music to transcribe grief, love, betrayal, and ancestral pain. The iconic scene buzzing around social media is the “Juke Joint” where Sammie performs “I Lied To You.” Both figuratively and literally, this upholds the vampire narrative of Sinners. Coogler directs this character development towards the darker side of his musical talent, in which blues music is being “misused” in terms of dancing with the devil, and would further develop him into accepting it.
Smoke and Stack — These twins that are the antagonists of the film are both played by Michael B Jordan (yes…a pair of Jordans). Coogler rooted these twins with the in-depth Yoruba meaning sourced from the Ibeji deities. This deity represents the morals of duality and balance. Smoke is attached to his past and enjoys life’s blissful ignorance (BLUE), while his twin, Stack, embeds himself with life’s hardships and greed (RED). These two brothers and their proper color representation can be loosely based on the motif of the Matrix Pills. Their dynamic overall is an open reflection of both cultural and inner personal recognition.
Mary — Hailee Steinfeld’s character is deemed to be the “white” lover of Stacks. However, her character embodies the “one-drop rule” and the biracial population that was in the American South. In the film, she is among the first to be bitten by Remmick, where she uses her greed and revenge to kill Stack. After killing Stack, in the post-credit scene, the audience learns that they are together in their immortal lives.
Remmick — The Irish vampire that both sings and does the Irish jig is played by Jack O’Connell. His character is metaphorically used to both appropriate and assimilate Black culture, especially music. Coogler hints at the shared experience of Black and Irish within hardcore colonialization and slavery.
Last Time (I Seen The Sun): Music and Art Appreciation
In the American South, Blues music was carefully curated as a genre that channeled the harsh lifestyles of Black individuals who faced and were forced to sacrifice their lives for later generations. Blues music is a cultural mixing pot of English, Irish, and Scottish that helped deepen the meaning of Black field songs.
The Blues focus on the portrayals of poverty, loss, and racial injustice that subsequently formed the roots of rock and roll. While the rock and roll genre hit mainstream media, both political and religious figures (including parents) condemned it as “the devil’s music”. Coogler used this genre to explore the devilish perspective from Sammie’s father, who feared that the blues would conjure the devil and his son would end up dancing with him. This is an important reflection of Southern youth rebellion sourced from conservatism.
In a more visual sense, Coogler uses Ernie Barnes’ painting “The Sugar Shack”. This electric depiction of a Black night club in North Carolina during the segregation era. This painting is a reference to the popular “Juke Joint” scene, where cultural identity in the Mississippi Delta becomes a melting pot of music, memory, and mythological perception of the past, future, and the present.
Hollywood’s Black Renaissance
In the last fifteen years, Hollywood cinema has experienced a complete renaissance of Black culturally rooted storytelling. Some important examples are Ana DuVernay, who sparked immense change with Selma and 13th. Jordan Peele reshaped horror films with Us and Nope via the blend of biblical verses. Ryan Coogler, who brought popular culture closer to strong Black narratives such as Black Panther and Sinners that celebrate Black heritage. These three and many more filmmakers bring authentic stories to life for cinematic reasons. Since the United States is founded on racial discrimination, Black filmmaking in Hollywood is extremely important for large audiences to hear stories that typically never get heard.
Will Ye Go, Lassie Go?
Black history, resilience, and racial oppression were not too long ago. In classrooms and other media, Black history is told through Black and White pictures, but we are not taught that it is more recent than what is typically told. The Sinners film will go down as one of the most important Black films by a Black director that tells a narrative about the Mississippi Delta. Without this film, a variety of audiences would not understand the different cultural dynamics that were all victims of colonialism and intersectionality in the Delta.
Looking For More Content On This Film? Go Read ALESA MITCHELL’s Movie Review!!