Horror

On Sinners (spoiler-ish)

Siân Pearce

28 Apr 2025 — 5 min read

In a break from my role-play related contented I wanted to try and put some thoughts together about Sinners, the recent Ryan Coogler film.

First, let me preface everything by saying this is a remarkable film, and very much worth watching. Yes, it has some gore and some vampires, but that doesn’t make it any less important.

Second, a disclaimer. This post talks about blues and black horror. I am a blues dancer, but a white welsh one. This is not my culture by right, but one I am kindly permitted to take part in. I hesitated before writing anything on this film, because of that. However, there’s plenty of nonsense getting put out there anyway, so maybe I can try and put something out there that isn’t nonsense. However, please do prioritise the writings and thoughts of Black American writers when looking for discourse on this film.

There is a lot to be said on this film and I don’t pretend to do it all justice here. I’m going to focus on the place of Blues music in the film as well as making some remarks on Black horror and Sinners fits in. At this point I’m not including thoughts on the use of Irish folk music or the way (black) women’s sexuality is shown in the film. This should not be thought to understate the importance of either theme in the film.

The Blues

I want to start by talking about the Blues. For me, this is a blues film with vampires, rather than a horror film which mentions the blues. The main action takes place in a juke joint on its opening night. We see the Smokestack twins gather the essential elements – the venue, the music, the food (having brought the booze with them). Even to the casual outsider it should be clear that the juke joint is more than a nightclub, but an important communal space.

The film opens with a service in a black church, and the distinction between what is happening in that communal space and the devil’s work attached to the Blues (symbolised by a broken guitar handle) is set up. This scene echoes that in Ganja and Hess, which I’ll be coming back to later.

Two key musicians are recruited: Sammie ‘Preacher Boy’ Moore, a young man just starting to make his way, and the older, alcoholic, Delta Slim. As the day progresses we see older men imparting life wisdom to Sammie – including tips on giving oral sex to women. On passing a chain gang Delta describes an incident where he bartered his musical ability to escape a lynching, noting ‘they like the blues, but not the folks that plays it’, immediately calling to mind the phase ‘they want our rhythm, but not our blues’ that was thrust into prominence during the black lives matter movement and notes the popularity of black culture among white groups who are not impacted by racism against the originators of that culture. Orientalism by any other name.

Dance and music are central to this film. For the eagle eyed there are many vernacular dance styles on displays – from partner dances akin to lindy hop to sand dancing. We both solo and partner dancing. The film notes how dance and music link people to their cultures, across time and space.

In the wake of the black lives matter movement there was a great deal of discussion about how white blues dancers should proceed, particularly as events seemed to have become unwelcoming to black dancers. In a now private blog post Ellie Koepingger asked white blues dancers to simply stop, other writers suggested different approaches to the problem of cultural appropriation. It remains a difficult question, in the UK we are still seeing black working class men and boys criminalised in trials using drill music as evidence, while ‘swing’ style dances such as lindy hop and blues retain their respectability, particularly when linked to the vintage hobbyist community.

Sinners isn’t directed at the white blues community, I’m not even sure it’s a film ‘for’ white people as such. But I do believe there is a particular resonance in the racial politics for those, like me, who do take part in expressions of blues culture – who like the vampires request access to the juke joint without the benefit of being ‘family’.

The Horror

The history of black representation in Anglo-American Horror is…well it’s not great. There is a reason that the trope ‘the black guy dies first’ exists (Means Coleman and Harris, 2023), and much has been written and said on that topic. I highly recommend Xavier Burgin’s 2019 documentary ‘Horror Noire: A History of Black Horror’. Of course, the blues often contains dark imagery, just as the English folk music tradition deals with death and darkness: from hoodoo men to St James Infirmary or Strange Fruit. As said by Tananarive Due, black history is black horror (Horror Noir, 2019).

For now I’d like to skip forward a few decades to 1972, when ‘Blacula’, directed by William Crain was released. Perhaps the first blaxpoitation horror, it departed from gothic convention by having a funk soundtrack, score by Gene Page. Blacula was a hit and studios wanted more. What they got was Ganja and Hess.

Ganja and Hess, released in 1973 and directed by Bill Gunn is an exceptional film, and has music at its heart. Another vampire film, it deals with themes of race, class, addiction and colonialism, and is a must see for anyone interested in black American music and culture. The score is by Sam Waymon (Nina Simone’s brother) who also stars in the film. Like Sinners it links music and culture at the atomic level – the call and response of black church music meets traditional African music styles.

A mere 52 years later and here we are again. However, while Ganja and Hess was nearly lost, Sinners is breaking box office records. Of course, a lot has happened since 1973, particularly in black horror. Leading to Sinners was the ‘hood horror’ of the 80s (Means Coleman and Harris, 2023), the monster solidarity of Candyman films – the 1992 and 2021 versions both speaking to their times, and of course the groundbreaking Get Out.

So

So here we are. I’m not sure where I thought I was going to end up. Some personal reflections. This film blew me away - to the point where I had to sit in my car for a bit and try to process before I could drive home. As a blues dancer it reminded me that what I enjoy is not mine, and that we must be really vigilant against appropriation and orientalism (and goodness knows I've rolled my eyes nearly out of my head every time some fantasy author get a case of the celtics). But it also gave me a window into that culture in a way totally different from other films, such as Ma Rainey's Black Bottom. It's not a film about blues music, or musicians (though the musicians in this film are exceptional). It's just about...the blues.

Hopefully any horror fans reading this will be encouraged to read more about the blues:

https://www.julie-brown-blues-dance.com/black-lives-matter

https://theafricanamericanfolklorist.com/articles/celebrating-the-legacy-of-blues

And maybe any blues fans will be interested in finding out more about horror:

https://www.bristolblackhorrorclub.com/

https://podcast.feedspot.com/black_horror_podcasts/