Sinners:”Dancing with the devil”
- eclectic Stefan
- 19 hours ago
- 7 min read
Blues music is infused with an apocryphal story surrounding blues legend Robert Johnson’s incredible transformation into an amazing guitar player after he supposedly met the devil at a crossroads near Clarksdale, Mississippi and sold his soul to the devil in exchange for his extraordinary guitar playing ability.
Sinners underpins that piece of musical folklore in a storyline that begins as a tale of Black American oppression and suffering in the rural areas of the southern state of Mississippi in the1930s and propels itself into a gory slaughterhouse horror fest. Music is the spine that holds these disparate elements together.
The prologue to Sinners tells us that certain cultures, such as the Choctaw Nation in Mississippi, believe that music has the seductive power to cross the realm between the living and the dead and draw evil into the world of the living. This notion carries across into storytelling traditions such as the Irish filidh and the West African griot.
Sinners takes us to the rural heartland of Mississippi where we meet Pearline, a natural healer and agent of magic potions. She is the conduit between the spirit and human worlds and protects the people living on the backroads of Mississippi from evil and harm through her potions and mojo pouches.
With Sinners, the supernatural element is connected to the music that, in turn, is woven into the narrative of Black American culture in Mississippi in the 1930s that, in turn, cascades into a metaphor of demonic creatures and bloodshed.
Surely a movie that integrates cultural deprivation and dislocation, vampiric horror and music cannot be anything but a jumbled confusion of ideas. You could say that each of these cinematic ideas are out of step with one another. However, in this case, they do flow together.
Blues songs such as Robert Johnson’s "Me and the Devil Blues," "Cross Road Blues," and "Preachin' Blues (Up Jumped the Devil)"; "Bessie Smith’s Hellhound on My Trail”; "Devil's Gonna Git You,” and "Hoodoo Man Blues” attest to the presence of the devil in southern American folklore. The blues soundtrack to this movie will stir your soul.
Sammie, also known as Preacher Boy
Sammie, nicknamed Preacher Boy, because he is the son of a preacher, is a central character and an exponent of the blues in Ryan Coogler’s Sinners. He embodies extraordinary blues guitar and vocal abilities that are enough to pique the interest of the Devil and make a person believe that Sammie has made a pact with Satan himself.
This is where we meet the Smokestack Twins, Elias and Elijah, known as Smoke and Stack, who return to Clarksdale, Mississippi from Chicago, where they have worked and acquired a sizeable stack of cash working as enforcers for Al Capone. Their belief, as was the case with many Black Americans in the conflicted and racist southern states, that travelling north to Chicago would liberate their subsistence lives.
As Smoke and Stack express unequivocally, when asked why they have returned to Mississippi, “Chicago replaces the plantations with skyscrapers” but nothing else changes much. The hardships remain the same. Basically, it's better to deal with the devil you know.
Living quarters and juke joint for migratory workers (© Public Domain)
Jitterbugging in juke joint, Clarksdale, Mississippi Delta (© Public Domain)
Photos: Marion Post Wolcott
The Smokestack Twins establish a juke joint, a place for respite for the sharecroppers from the grind of life in the fields. They invite Preacher Boy to play at the juke joint and his sweet music entreaties the crowds drinking corn liquor to sway and sweat sensuously to his euphoric chords. The Twins state it precisely when they say what happens in a juke joint is “Improper shit.“
During the bewitching hour, Preacher Boy’s sublime tunes also invite the evil spirts from the shadow realms to hear the call of his music to join the revelry. Smoke and Stack, however, don’t believe in magic or ghosts, just power…and money gives you power. However, their belief in magic is about to be tested in the bloodiest fashion. Money won't save anyone.
Remmick is the evil that resonates with Preacher Boy’s music. His desire lies beyond the rapturous tunes to murderous intent. He claims his demonic actions will bring unity and harmony to the world. They will all co-exist as vampires in the dark realms. Remmick, the demonic power that launches the death and mayhem at the juke joint, says, “This is the way forever, together.”
Remmick crosses realms in a bridging scene, like a musical bridge in a song, to bring us to the film’s second movement, The Slaughterhouse Symphony.
Preacher Boy's sublime music entreaties magic, ghosts, fangs & claws
For the squeamish, be forewarned. The second half of the movie shifts into scenes of unreserved ferociousness showing throats being torn and flesh spurting blood. Anyone familiar with Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez’s movie From Dusk Til Dawn will know what to expect. Sinners reflects directly the content, intent and tone of that movie.
There is a purpose to the blood lust beyond mere cheap thrills. The wages of sin, including the sweat and sensuality within the jukejoint, is death. And Remmick is death's messenger.
In Sinners, the evil changes from characters who wear white hoods and carry burning crosses to horror creatures from the fires of hell that grow fangs and claw-like nails with a craving for human blood and flesh. It doesn’t matter how you dress it, a living Hell—whether in the visage of the Klu Klux Klan or hideous demons—is still Hell.
Saints & Sinners: Sunday I go to church/Gonna kneel down and pray
The characters in Sinners reveal their dual nature as sinners and repentants. Unfortunately, their penance is an horrific death, unless they can survive until dawn, when sunlight will banish the forces of night. The revellers' attitude and plight at the jukejoint is expressed in the lyrics of T-Bone Walker’s classic Stormy Monday Blues:
"They call it Stormy Monday
But Tuesday's just as bad
Lord, and Wednesday's worse
And Thursday's also sad
The eagle flies on Friday (payday)
Saturday I go out to play
Sunday I go to church
Gonna kneel down and pray"
Lyrics: Stormy Monday Blues
Composer: T-Bone Walker
Sinners is a movie packed with fables and folklore, swathed in the blues, imbued with historical reality, slathered in voodoo and vampires and overflowing with blood splattering scenes that will make you grind your incisors.
You may feel, like I did in my initial hesitation to watch it, that Sinners is a mishmash of ideas and not to your taste. You may wish, as I did after watching Sinners, to reassess your hesitation. It would have been interesting to hear Ryan Coogler’s pitch to studio executives to give him the green light to make the movie. Whatever he said, it worked to the tune of 100 million dollars.
Official Poster Sinners
If the blood and horror repulse you, then it’s best to avoid Sinners; if audacious filmmaking excites you, then take a chance on Sinners.
Writer/director Ryan Coogler tackles historical issues that reverberate in contemporary times and injects echoes of movie references to the Danse Macabre machine gun death scene from Arthur Penn's Bonnie and Clyde, Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez’s vampire terror From Dusk Til Dawn, and Martin Scorsese’s blues compendium The Blues Collection. It all coalesces, albeit in a terrifying way, into a cohesive movie.
Sinners
Warner Brothers Official Trailer
All Official Production Stills & Trailer © Proximity Media/Warner Brothers Pictures
Other photos © Public Domain
PLEASE NOTE:
If you’re tempted to walk out of the cinema when the credits roll, DON’T. The movie’s denouement happens in the credit sequence—and I don’t mean a few outtakes but essential aspects, including an appearance by blues legend Buddy Guy, that tie up loose ends in the storyline—plus there is a hidden gem at the very end of the credits.
SINNERS
AWARDS & NOMINATIONS
Academy Awards 2026 (16 Nominations): Best Picture, Director (Ryan Coogler), Actor
(Michael B. Jordan), Supporting Actor (Delroy Lindo), Supporting Actress (Wunmi Mosaku), Original Screenplay, Cinematography, Film Editing, Production Design, Costume Design, Makeup & Hairstyling, Sound, Visual Effects, Original Score, Original Song (“I Lied To You”), and Casting.
Critics Choice Awards 2026: Won 4 awards at the 31st Critics Choice Awards from 17 nominations. The film secured wins for Best Original Screenplay (Coogler), Best Score (Ludwig Göransson), Best Young Actor/Actress (Miles Caton), and Best Casting and Ensemble.
Golden Globe Awards: Won two awards at the 83rd Annual Golden Globes for Best Cinematic and Box Office Achievement and Best Original Score - Motion Picture (Ludwig Göransson).
FILM EXTRAS
From Dusk Til Dawn (1996)
On the run from a bank robbery that left several police officers dead, Seth Gecko (George Clooney) and his paranoid, loose-cannon brother, Richard (Quentin Tarantino), hightail it to the Mexican border. Kidnapping preacher Jacob Fuller (Harvey Keitel) and his kids, the criminals sneak across the border in the family's vehicle and barricade themselves in a topless bar. Unfortunately, the bar also happens to be home base for a gang of vampires, and the brothers and their hostages have to fight their way out.
Martin Scorsese Presents The Blues Collection (2003)
Martin Scorsese Presents The Blues: A Musical Journey is a seven-part documentary series that explores the history, evolution, and cultural impact of blues music. The series features individual films directed by Scorsese, Clint Eastwood, Wim Wenders, Mike Figgis, Charles Burnett, Richard Pearce, Robert Kenner and Marc Levin, tracing the genre from its African roots and Mississippi Delta origins to Chicago and beyond, featuring archival footage and new performances.
Bill Wyman’s Blues Odyssey
Bill Wyman’s Blues Odyssey is a comprehensive history of blues music, authored by former Rolling Stones bassist Bill Wyman. Available as a book and a documentary DVD, it serves as his personal tribute to the genre that laid the foundation for rock 'n' roll. Beginning with the Atlantic slave trade, the history traces the migration of African-American music from the Deep South plantations through Memphis and St. Louis to the urban hubs of Chicago. It examines the socio-political environment of the South, exploring how poverty, injustice, and faith shaped the musical style. The work covers the evolution from early 1920s folk-blues to the electric Chicago sound and eventually the British blues boom of the 1960s.
