Sinners is more than just a vampire horror epic laced with jumpscares and blood-soaked spectacle. Set in the Jim Crow-era Mississippi, Ryan Coogler’s film burns with the history of the American South—a gothic visual that cuts deep with the traces of Black pain, memory and resilience. It shuns linear cinema, blurs the lines between reality and fantasy and ignites a cultural memory that still endures in the collective psyche of Black Americans.
Scratch the surface, and what unpacks is a historiography, a social commentary with layers of symbolism focused on Black culture, Black art, Black spirituality and racial exploitation. The vampires act as an allegory for white supremacy, gentrification and appropriation.
Sinners, a horror rooted in history
The story follows two twins, Smoke and Stack (both played by Michael B. Jordan), who return to Clarksdale, Mississippi, after staying and working with Al Capone in Chicago for nine years. In the era where racial segregation and exploitation were at their peak, with organisations like the Ku Klux Klan terrorising in pursuit of white supremacy, the twins dreamed of opening a Juke Joint—a bar or club for Black workers in the South—a hope and cultural sanctuary for Black Americans in a world that didn’t allow them any.
Given the historical roots of juke joints in slavery, where enslaved individuals gathered to eat together and socialise, the plot, even if limited to establishing this dream, would have been a compelling narrative. But Coogler does not stop here; he entangles the spiritual world with the real world, delivering symbolism so stark it can’t be missed.
On the opening night, the twins convince their cousin, Sammie (Miles Caton) — preacher boy— to take the stage, and he sings the Blues—a musical genre, rooted in political and social history, that emerged from the oppressed African-American communities in rural southern America, more specifically the Mississippi Delta. Sammie is a talented guitarist who possesses the ability to transcend reality with his playing. With his Blues, Sammie pierces the haze of time and summons the artist’s spirits from the past, present and future. This one-shot scene incorporates the history of Black music—tugging into threads from the past and future alike.
His singing also awakens Remmick (Jack O’Connell), an Irish vampire—the main antagonist of the film Sinners, who leads the bloodthirsty vampires towards the Juke Joint in an attempt to reconnect with his ancestors through Sammie’s power of transcending time using music. This creates the perfect metaphor for how Black music for decades has been stolen and appropriated into mainstream culture.
The racial exploitation: Vampirism as allegory
Remmick, with the real intention to feast on the Black patrons and acquire Sammie’s ability, calls them outside with a guise of freedom—a vision of the world that is free from the oppressive terrors and historical traumas related to racism and segregation. He does so by speaking of his traumas and pain. He sings the Irish ballad from the mid-19th century called The Rocky Road to Dublin.
The vampires in film act as metaphors—demons that feed on Black art and labour—for cultural appropriation, for terror and exploitation.
The use of the traditional Irish folk song—that encapsulates the suffering, the victimisation of and violence against Irish people—draws parallels between two oppressed communities. Rimmeck speaks of the identical pain they have been induced to; he speaks their language of rage, of loss and resilience. He mentions how once a Christian took his father’s land and how he remembers what it’s like to be a cast out. However, Rimmeck bears the tragedies of oppression, moulding into a devil he once despised, a vampire with the bloodthirsty desire to enslave the Blacks. He demands power and oppression to feed on.
The Juke Joint, a sanctuary for the Black community, becomes a supernatural battleground. A place to relish and connect away from the horrors of the world is knocked on by the very horrors they try to stay away from. The vampires in film act as metaphors—demons that feed on Black art and labour—for cultural appropriation, for terror and exploitation. His vampirism is a metaphor for how white supremacy feeds on Black culture—exploiting its language, music, art, and soul.
The women in Sinners
The representation of Black women in the media, specifically Hollywood, has contributed to how they are defined and how their identities are constructed. Annie (Wunmi Mosaku), a hoodoo healer and Smoke’s former lover, could have been easily fitted into the Mammy trope that has usually been associated with curvy Black women. They are reduced to being a caretaker or a mother. However, keeping her at the centre of the story as the main love interest focuses on the politics of desirability and challenges the masculinisation of Black women in the media. She is powerful, yet deeply desired.
Annie also represents the Black spirituality. Rooted in traditional beliefs and Black culture, Annie sees through Remmick’s intentions. She, unlike the typical archetype, is not just left to be the side character—the hero’s lover with no substance to her character at all. She embodies depth and resilience. She prides herself on her Black tradition and spirituality—resisting the colonisation of her spirituality by the Christian church. Her presence underscores the gendered dimension of survival and resistance—she carries the legacy of her ancestors, the memory and the grounding rage of the Black women and how they continued to resist the social system.
In the racially charged environment of 1930s Mississippi, Mary’s (Hayle Steinfield) character also highlights a deeper meaning. According to the one-drop rule, any person with even a single ancestor of African descent was thereby considered Black. Her dual existence as a vampire and human can be considered a metaphor for the complex racial identity and the rigidity of the social classification.
An ode to Black artistry
The music in Sinners commands attention. A haunting echo of history—the blues invokes the memory, summons not only the spirits but pain, rage, and joy. It acts as resistance, as a homage to Black resilience. The supernatural is a current—a vessel through which historical trauma is remembered.
Sinners is a cinematic experience. The symbolism of vampires as the cultural extraction in the backdrop of the lived experience of Southern America. The supernatural becomes the lens to look at the historical and cultural trauma. Using Southern Gothic aesthetics, the spine-chilling score and the supernatural allegory—the film speaks too much and sustains the weight of truth. It speaks of art, of community, of joy in conjunction with the terrors of the past which continue to loom in the present.
About the author(s)
Reeba Khan is a Political Science student at Delhi University. As a writer and student journalist, she has a keen interest in issues of identity, conflict, and politics of belonging. She writes to remember and to resist
