Vampires are making a comeback. That sentence may be divisive, as we’re still picking off flecks of glitter from the last reign of vampires thanks to Twilight, True Blood, and The Vampire Diaries. The unofficial vampire period of 2005-2016 served as a playground for combining romance and melodrama with vampirism. Instead of the quintessential choice of the popular person vs. the nerd or the blonde vs. the brunette, we were tasked with vampire vs. werewolf.
Unlike Near Dark, Interview with the Vampire, and John Carpenter’s Vampires, our millennial vamps were too complex for a 90-minute runtime. They had become episodic. “Tune in next week to see how this vampire deals with day-to-day life in their…afterlife?”
A vampire’s shift from antagonist to anti-hero or even hero was normalized.
We rooted for them. We cared for them so much we wanted them to kill – if it brought them redemption. Above all, we envied their infinite time to correct any mistakes they made in their mortal life. Long gone were the days of vampires as the threat. They were often more relatable than the traditional protagonist.
This particular era of vampires skipped the nuance of camp and essentially made the vampires immortal humans who happen to need blood to survive. They had regrets, insecurities, and loneliness. Their feeding was secondary to their emotions. When they did kill, it wasn’t survival but a moral declaration. Long gone were the exuberant and indulgent killing sprees of its predecessors. Lamentation replaced bloodthirst, and our fear gave way to empathy.
At the end of 2024, Robert Eggers essentially gave us a much-needed reset with his rendition of Nosferatu.
Well received by critics and audiences alike, Nosferatu served as a beautiful reminder of what vampires used to be: primal, inhuman but still intoxicating.
However, Nosferatu may have overcorrected on the relatability of a vampire to the viewer. We still need to see ourselves in the vampire.
What the coiffed, emotionally tortured vamps did so well was provide us with a much-needed respite from the gratuitous violence of the early-to-mid 2000s. We were recovering from the fatigue of faceless torture. Despite their brooding, our vampiric mirrors provided catharsis, or at the very least, entertainment.
In 2025, we are past entertainment. We are looking for media that provides a voice in a world that forever attempts to eclipse it.
Enter: Ryan Coogler’s Sinners.
Sinners, directed by Ryan Coogler and starring Miles Canton and Michael B. Jordan, comments on race, religion, and family, all under the threat of vampires in Jim Crow Mississippi. There is a lot to handle, but Coogler wields artistic restraint, weaving a period piece, family drama, love story, and vampire lore into a tapestry threaded with American history.
After serving in World War I and working with the mob in Chicago, criminal twins Smoke and Stack (both played by Michael B. Jordan) return to Mississippi with plans of opening a juke joint. While recruiting talent and staff for the grand opening, Smoke and Stack reunite with their younger cousin, Sammie Moore (Miles Canton), the local preacher’s son and a talented blues guitarist. Sammie’s ultimatum of playing the blues versus living a righteous life is established from the opening sequence. His father reminds him, “You keep dancing with the devil; one day it’s going to follow you home.” A warning the audience and Sammie do not take lightly.
Once Sinners cements itself as a drama, Remmick (Jack O’Connell) makes an incendiary entrance. Stumbling, desperate, and partially burned from the sun, Ryan Coogler establishes how the vampires in his world work. They are not here to bite your bosom like Christopher Lee’s Dracula nor start a domesticated life with you. Absent is the Teflon-like refinement and aloof sensuality.
Although Jack O’Connell’s Remmick has the charm and chutzpah to lead a series as head baddie, that energy is not needed for the film’s bigger purpose. So, let’s rip the bandaid off: Sinners is an allegory of divorcing your values for the sake of promised freedom.
For a house of sinners who put themselves further from salvation each day, Remmick’s offer to live freely in an oppressed world is tempting. The trade? Give up your soul. To those who deem themselves beyond saving, the offer puts them at a moral crossroads that was implied before we entered their world.
With dramatic irony and horror movie rules on our side, we know who will prevail or succumb when confronted with their demons.
Again, that’s not the point.
Art, more specifically horror movies, serves as a temporary portal to confront our fears from the comfort of our seats. We can put ourselves in the shoes of the character and romanticize how we’d survive or heroically perish. Escape from that scary world is promised once the credits roll.
That detachment isn’t as easy with Sinners, as it begs the viewer to confront who they are before they are tempted to become something they can’t undo.
For the past decade, vampires have been dormant, letting zombies and the paranormal guide the genre.
Then, for a brief period, A24stepped in to remind us of the rot within. Although compelling, it was too confronting. At the end of the day, we still crave detachment and superiority to our fictional counterparts.
Vampires have endured over a century of storytelling because they are a blank canvas and a grey area to explore moral ambiguity. They’re digestible as relatable monsters because they look like us. The sociopolitical comments are thinly veiled but masterfully symbolized.
For a subgenre hibernating in its coffin, Sinners is a fat, juicy rat that will revive the subgenre. A resurgence of vampire lore told from silenced voices will more than likely have a brief tour before returning to its coffin for a bigger entrance.
***This article was written by Sam Hill of Westin Hills Reviews***
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Images for this review were purchased via MovieStillsDB + CineMaterial.
