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Sinners, the new horror movie from director Ryan Coogler starring Michael B Jordan, has completely blown expectations out of the water - no one quite expected just how successful this R-rated...
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00:00Sinners, the new horror movie from director Ryan Coogler starring Michael B. Jordan,
00:04has completely blown expectations out of the water. While everyone knows that Coogler is an
00:09adept director who makes great movies, no one quite expected just how successful his R-rated
00:14vampire horror would turn out to be. And the film isn't just great because of its well-done horror,
00:20it also packs some really deep messages into the 24 hours of its story. So what is Sinners really
00:26about? Let's unpack the film's meaning and key symbolism, plus analyze what that ending really
00:32means. Sinners is the story of two brothers, twins Smoke and Stack, returning home to Jim Crow-era
00:38Mississippi after chasing fortune and power in Chicago. It opens with a young man, the twins'
00:44cousin Sammy, arriving at a small church. His clothes in tatters, the broken remnants of a guitar gripped
00:51tightly in his hand. We see quick flashes of some unknown horror, slashing red eyes, as the preacher,
00:58Sammy's father, asks him to finally leave the life of sinning and music behind. We then rewind back
01:05to 24 hours prior, and begin following down the dark road that got Sammy to that bleak morning.
01:13Here, we meet a bright, plucky Sammy. He, like all young adults, feels trapped under the pressure
01:18from his parents to behave in certain ways and move towards a specific future. But he clearly loves and
01:24cares for his family. And so he's very excited when his older cousins return to town. As leaving
01:30small-town Mississippi for a big city up north is exactly what he desires to do. Smoke and Stack are
01:37both quick to shoot down his illusions of those big cities like Chicago being some idealistic safe
01:42havens. The racism might function a little differently up there, but it still functions all the same.
01:48The twins have returned on a mission. Tired of feeling like they were being kept from true power
01:53elsewhere, they've decided to come home and build a place for themselves, where they and their friends
01:59and family can finally feel a little freedom and ease. They purchase an old mill from a clearly up to
02:05no good guy, and get to work setting up their very own juke joint. Smoke, the more quiet and stoic twin,
02:12thinks that they should plan things out a bit. But Stack, fiery and spontaneous, wants to open
02:19tonight. And so, with Sammy's help, they begin going into overdrive to get everything ready in time.
02:25Stack and Sammy head off to convince musician Delta Slim to play that night. Money doesn't work to
02:30convince him, but all of the Irish beer he can drink helps. They also meet Pearlene, who agrees to stop by
02:37and sing. And, as chance would have it, Stack's old love Mary also happens to be at the station,
02:44having recently come through for her mother's funeral. She is very unhappy with Stack, both because
02:50he left her, and because he and his brother didn't show up to her mother's funeral, even though she
02:55helped raise them. Smoke goes into town to get supplies from his friends Grace and Bo, Chinese-American
03:00shopkeepers, and asks Grace to use her art skills to make some signs. When Smoke arrives, he asks a
03:07young girl to watch his truck, for which he'll pay her for every minute he's gone. She immediately
03:12agrees, but he corrects her that she should always negotiate when it comes to money. This small vignette
03:19shows us something important about Smoke. He sees himself as a leader and a guide, someone who has to
03:24protect others around him and help them with a little tough love. In their quick combo, we can also see
03:30that Grace has this strong sense of self in common. She immediately haggles with him over how much he
03:36should pay her to make the signs. Smoke then goes to visit his estranged wife Annie and visit the grave
03:42of their child. As the sun begins to set, we shift to a farmhouse where a man, whose skin is sizzling,
03:49runs up to the door and begs to be let in. Clocking the clan robes in their house, he lays it on thick
03:55that he's being chased by Native Americans and so needs help. And though at first reluctant,
04:01they do let him in. The Native Americans arrive shortly thereafter, and when she answers the door
04:07with a gun, attempt to warn the woman that the man isn't what he seems and she could be in danger.
04:13But she continues to threaten them until they leave. They likely realize that they're not going to get
04:18anywhere here. Which means they're going to have to deal with multiple vampires after the one they were
04:23chasing turns however many people were in the house. And so they head out, likely to regroup
04:28overnight and prepare to continue the hunt the next day. She searches through the house for her
04:33husband and the strange man, only to find that he wasn't at all what he seemed. And now, neither is
04:40her husband. The strange man is in fact a vampire named Renek. He turned her husband, and then of course,
04:48they turn her as well. But after this quick setup, we're back into the story of the juke joint.
04:54And this is part of why the horror in the film works so well. It's built up slowly, lurking in the
05:00background, hiding behind all of the other problems our protagonists are also trying to deal with.
05:06But they do get the juke joint set up in time, and it opens to great success. Everyone's having a
05:12great time. Until that horror rears its head yet again. Popping up at the door with a smile and a
05:18song. Setting off a chain reaction of destruction. Googler has mentioned John Carpenter's The Thing
05:25being an inspiration for this film. I would say the biggest influence is probably going to be
05:31The Thing by John Carpenter. And we can definitely feel that once the horror starts kicking off in the
05:36barn. In The Thing, a rapidly dwindling group is trapped with a terrifying shape-shifting monster
05:43on a remote research station in Antarctica, trying to hold out until a rescue team arrives. In Sinners,
05:49the group becomes trapped in the barn, trying to make it to sunrise. Everyone is unsure of what
05:55exactly is going on, who they can trust, and how they could possibly make it out of this situation in
06:01the end. The vampires follow many of the tropes we've become accustomed to,
06:06unable to be in the sun, react negatively to garlic, have to be specifically invited inside, etc.
06:12But Googler has also added some interesting twists. Like the fact that they can absorb
06:16the thoughts and memories of their victims. This makes it even more terrifying when a loved one is
06:21turned. Not only have you lost this person, but now everything you shared together, even the most
06:28private things, is fodder for this evil to use against you. In all of the horror tropes, there are also
06:34funny references to how people would actually react in this kind of situation. For example,
06:39at one point the group is passing around garlic to eat to make sure there aren't any secret vampires
06:43in the building. Marlene hates garlic, which makes everyone concerned, especially when she tries to
06:50refuse to eat it. She nearly heaves when she finally does, but then is fine. Because she's not a vampire.
06:57Eating an entire clove of garlic is just something that would make a lot of people heave.
07:02Plying all of the supernatural elements of the film together is the power of music to connect people
07:08across time and space. The very opening of the film takes us through a quick history of how
07:14many cultures feel that particularly soulful music can pierce the veil between living and dead,
07:20past, future, and present. We get early notions of this, for example, when Slim is telling the story
07:26about how he and the men on the chain gang were almost lynched, but were forced to play music
07:31instead. And of how sadly his brother was lynched. Over the course of his story, we hear the audio of
07:38those past events bleeding through into his present moment. Sami has this powerful gift too, and he
07:45regales the patrons at the juke joint with a song that, in a swirling single shot, melds together black
07:51music from across time. From traditional West African music and dance, to a DJ spinning turntables
07:57and more. We can see how this kind of powerful music can connect across cultures as well as time,
08:03as we also see a Chinese opera dancer swirling along with the crowd. In this between worlds shot,
08:09it becomes a very literal barn burner. A term that denotes a very exciting event, but was originally
08:16used to refer to radicals who were so determined to get rid of systemic abuses that they were willing
08:21to destroy the system itself. Sami's resonator guitar is a key symbol throughout the film.
08:28Gift from Smoke and Stack, he initially believes that it once belonged to blues legend Charlie Patton,
08:33cause Stack had told him he'd won it from him gambling. It turns out, however, that the guitar
08:38actually belonged to none other than Smoke and Stack's vicious father. But even though it doesn't come from
08:44a vaunted lineage like Sami had thought, it's still able to help him connect into that musical other
08:50world. The guitar saves Sami metaphorically, but in this case also literally when he uses it to slow
08:56up Renick's attack. And in the end, Sami doesn't heed his father's pleas. We'll dig into the film's
09:03ending in just a moment. When the vampires first arrive at the juke joint, they attempt to win favor
09:08and entry by playing folk song Picked Poor Robin Clean, which is about fleecing someone gambling.
09:14But here, Picking Robin Clean takes on a very different meaning. Though of course those inside
09:20aren't yet aware of it at the time. Renick the Vampire originally hails from Ireland,
09:25and has brought Irish folk songs with him as well. A major moment in the film comes when,
09:30after nearly all of the patrons in the juke joint have been turned, everyone joins together
09:35outside to dance as Renick sings Rocky Road to Dublin. An Irish folk song about a man's
09:40misadventures as he tries to seek his fortune. He has a generally terrible time, being treated poorly
09:46by pretty much everyone he runs into. Until he finally makes it to Liverpool, England,
09:51where he's mocked by the locals for being Irish, but saved by a group of Irishmen, and heads back
09:57towards Dublin. While the song was likely chosen mainly due to its being a well-known Irish folk song,
10:03it could also be a nod to the way that Renick is, in a way, trying to find, or rather create,
10:09his own people, as he was forced to leave his home and his people behind. As he briefly mentions,
10:15he was forced out of his home by colonizers. But of course here, instead of being about
10:19misadventures and coming to appreciate the camaraderie and care of your own community,
10:24Renick has a very dark take on finding community. Pulling people in against their will,
10:29and with no means of escape so that you can use them for your own ends.
10:35Sinners is, in many ways, about battles between ways of being. The twins, for example, might look
10:41alike, but they are very different in essentially every other way. Far from the trope we often see
10:46with twins, where people are just so confused by which is which, everyone can tell Smoke and stack
10:51apart immediately, even from far away. Their minds, temperaments, and the way they carry themselves
10:56are all individual. They even favor different colors, Smoke leaning towards cool-toned blue
11:02and Stack towards red. But at their core, they do share some similarities. Namely, their deep care
11:08for each other and for their families and friends. As the terrifying night wears on, we can see the
11:14shifting battle between who, or what, they are play out in their color palette as well. Stack removing his
11:21red clothing and, once churned, revealing smoky blue eyes. Smoke becoming covered in red blood.
11:28No matter how they might be separated, by time or space or by the veil of life and death itself,
11:34they will always have a part of the other within them.
11:38A big split for everyone in the film hinges on what they see as their main source of power.
11:43His father being a preacher, Sami has been brought up in the church. But he himself is drawn to music.
11:49Other spirituality has power here too, like Annie's root work. While she deeply believes in it,
11:55Smoke has doubts. He wonders, if it's so powerful, why then wasn't it able to save their baby?
12:03But it's clear that even if he doesn't necessarily believe in her work,
12:07he does believe in her. Because he's been wearing the protection Annie gave him all this time.
12:13Both Smoke and Stack feel that money is the only real avenue to power and safety.
12:19But they've also continually run into the way that people with power know that too. And so will do
12:25anything to keep Black people from getting money. From the people they tried to run with in Chicago,
12:31to the plantation owners back home who pay their workers in plantation dollars,
12:35which could only be spent in designated places, making sure that the money never really left the
12:41purview of those owners. Another big question the film grapples with is that of assimilation.
12:46And if it can ever really be a means to an end. While the others immediately see Remick and his
12:52little posse for the danger they represent, Mary feels that her existence at a point between the
12:58two will allow her to safely bridge the gap long enough for them to make some profit off of the
13:03situation. This instead leads to her being the first to be turned, and sets off the true destruction
13:09for everyone else in the barn that night. Remick frames his proposal that the last survivors come
13:15out and join him as a positive one. They can all be more powerful together, and create some kind of
13:21post-racial vampire utopia through the power of song. This unsurprisingly does not sway anyone in the
13:27barn. And we can see already that his offer isn't true. All of the new vampires are forced to help him to
13:35achieve his aims, with no thought to them at all. A line Stax says at the very end gets to the heart
13:41of the matter. Becoming a vampire might have meant no more physical pain, but it also meant no more sun.
13:48He finally got a version of that power he wanted, but at the cost of being disconnected from everything
13:54that made him human. After the barn battle, Sami and Smoke are able to take out Remick just as the sun is
14:00coming up over the horizon. And in a blaze, he and almost all of the other vampires go up in flames.
14:07Sami heads off back to the church, to the moment when we first met him,
14:12deliberating if he'll finally leave music behind for good.
14:15But while the vampires might have been vanquished, the film moves towards a disconcerting truth.
14:21The biggest dangers don't need to hide in the darkness.
14:24Remick had earlier let Smoke know that the clan member selling them the barn
14:29was indeed a ruse. And they planned to come back and kill everyone there in the morning.
14:33And sure enough, in with the sun comes a pack of clansmen.
14:37Smoke sees one last chance to take a stand and eradicate an evil from the world.
14:42He takes out all of the men, but is himself fatally wounded. In his last moments, we see him split
14:49between two worlds. The mortal one, and the one beyond, where Annie is waiting with their child.
14:56She had asked him to, if she was bitten, kill her before she turned, so that her spirit would be
15:01able to move on and be with their baby. As hard as it was, when the time came, he followed through.
15:07And now, in his final moments, they get to all be connected in this peaceful spirit world.
15:13Sami, we find out in a mid-credits scene, did not heed his father's plea to give up music.
15:19In fact, he did just the opposite. He had a new version of the guitar created,
15:23and went on to make it his life's work. We see him, played by a real-life blues legend buddy Guy,
15:2960 years after that horrible night, playing for an adoring crowd.
15:34After his show, the bouncer tells him that he has visitors.
15:37And when he hears the bouncer confirm that they can come inside, he realizes what's up.
15:43In walks Stack and Merry, looking just the same as the last time he saw them 60 years ago.
15:49Save for some sartorial updates. They hadn't stuck around that night at the barn,
15:53but instead ran away together before sunrise. Stack tells Sami that Smoke only let him go because he
15:59promised to leave Sami alone and let him live out his life in peace. Which he did.
16:04Stack asks if Sami would like to join them and live forever. But Sami is very much not interested.
16:11The film is in many ways about Sami's own coming of age. Realizing the true depths of what the world has to
16:17offer, both good and bad. And now, with time, he's also come to realize what's really important.
16:25He doesn't need to live forever. Because he has created his own legacy that will live on.
16:31And has become a part of that unbreakable fabric of time and soul connected through music.
16:36As they're parting, they share one last moment. Reminiscing about how, before the horror started,
16:42that fateful day was the best day of their lives. For both, it was a point of no return. The last time
16:50Stack saw his brother or the son. Or felt a true taste of freedom. And the moment that Sami had to
16:56decide for himself who he was going to be and how he was going to use his gift. Sinners drives home the
17:03horror of a life forced to be lived in the darkness. But also, the power of stepping into the light.
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