Some Reflections on Sinners
How Black spirituality and Black resilience comes together to fight the monsters
It hasn’t even been 24 hours since I’ve seen it, and I’m already writing my review of Ryan Coogler’s latest film, Sinners. For someone who’s not even into vampire films, this was a great movie and I think it’s worth seeing multiple times.
Yes, I am about to reveal spoilers, so if you need to excuse yourself to see the movie first, please don’t hesitate. Here’s a synopsis.
There’s a lot you can take away from this movie—it’s just that good. I’m gonna share a few of my own thoughts, mostly around the spiritual and historical/cultural stuff that stood out to me. But honestly, there’s so much more I could say. These are just the things that really stuck with me the most.
Spiritual Reflections
More than blood, Sinners is a movie that’s soaked in spirituality. But the spirituality we’re used to seeing front and center in stories like this—especially in our context—isn’t really the focus at all. I’m talking about Christianity. Specifically, the Westernized versions of Protestantism and Catholicism that usually dominate the conversation.
Now, Christianity isn’t completely missing from Sinners—it’s there—but it kind of feels... irrelevant. And by irrelevant, I don’t mean invisible. It exists in the world of the film, but it’s not the savior of the story (pun intended). It’s not the guiding force.
If you’ve seen a vampire movie before, you know the elements—crosses, holy water, priests, Latin prayers—the whole Catholic aesthetic is basically a staple. And some of those things show up in Sinners, but they’re not tied to Christianity in the way we’re used to seeing. It’s like the film takes those elements and strips them of their traditional religious meaning, placing them in a different kind of spiritual context entirely.
Sinners begins and ends at a church—a Black church, specifically. A plain white building in the Jim Crow South, and inside, everyone’s dressed in white too - which feels intentional, symbolic. White could be symbolizing purity, like the idea of the saints, or maybe it’s hinting at something deeper—like whitewashing. Let the reader understand.
Either way, this church is where Sammie, also known as “Preacher Boy,” first receives the warning from his father, a pastor, about “dancing with the devil.” And after everything goes down at the juke joint, the church is where he runs—right back to where his father begs him to repent and give up his supernatural musical gifts.
Both times, Sammie chooses not to accept what the church is offering. And I’ll get into why that matters in a second. But outside of those two scenes, the church, Jesus, or anything else tied to Christianity pretty much fades into the background for the rest of the film.
That is, until the end of that wild night. Right before sunrise, as Sammie is face-to-face with death, in the clutches of Remmick’s blood-soaked claws—he starts saying the Lord’s Prayer. Maybe it’s for comfort, maybe he thinks it’ll protect him. Maybe he’s buying time.
Whatever the case, something unexpected happens. Remmick joins in. So do the other vampires he’s turned. Remmick then explains that this same prayer was once used by colonizers on his Irish ancestors. And even though it brought him comfort, those words never saved his people. And now, it seems like they won’t save Sammie either.
Watching that scene communicated - at least to me - that the Lord’s Prayer, and more broadly, what it represented (Christianity), wasn’t originally theirs. Not Sammie’s people. Not Remmick’s either. Both the Irish and African Americans were colonized and forced into a religion, or at least a version of it, that didn’t come from them—it came from their oppressors.
Slim, the elder blues musician, says as much in an earlier scene in the film. He points out that “Blues weren’t forced on us like that religion. We brought this with us from home.” It wasn’t imposed, it wasn’t beaten into us. It was ours.
So when Remmick responds to Sammie’s prayer, it’s not really about whether the words “worked” or not—it’s about where those words came from. Yes, they came from Jesus in the gospels, but they take on a different meaning entirely when they came from colonizers to the conquered. Like Sammie, Remmick had once looked for salvation in something that had never truly belonged to him. Something that had been used to pacify and control his people. The words that Sammie hoped to soothe him in that moment came from people committed to silencing him and generations before him.
And that’s why, at the end of the film, when Sammie stumbles back into the church with the scars of Remmick’s talons engraved into his face, carrying his half-broken guitar neck, he refuses to let go of it—even when his father urges him to turn to the Lord. Because it wasn’t his oppressor’s Lord who saved him that night before. It wasn’t a prayer or a cross or divine intervention. It was that silver-bodied guitar which previously conjured up ancestral spirits - it was that guitar that crushed Remmick’s skull in the end. It was his cousin Smoke who put the stake in Remmick’s heart at exactly the right moment before the sun rose. That’s what delivered him.
This isn’t your typical vampire flick where a certain kind of Christianity rides in at the last minute to save the day. And that’s deliberate. In Sinners, Christianity isn’t sidelined because it’s bad or irrelevant in and of itself—it’s because, in this story, it's a version of Christianity that’s been co-opted, repackaged, and weaponized by colonizers. The faith that might’ve once meant liberation got twisted into something else—something used to dominate and erase. But in spite of that, Black faith persisted. Black magic and spirituality prevailed. So when it was time for Sammie to make his choice, instead of choosing a forced faith - one that was still and confined and whitewashed like those people in the pews - he chose the lively, dancing, and enduring connection he experienced that night in the juke joint, something that existed long before.
The idea of Christianity’s ineffectiveness or irrelevance in the movie will most likely upset a lot of Christians. Some will reject the movie’s message as demonic and refuse to see it from this perspective. Others might watch the film and still interpret it through a Christian lens—finding ways to make the story fit their own beliefs. And hey, that’s what we do as humans - with everything. We all bring our own perspectives (or not-our-own perspectives) into what we watch. But it’s also kind of unfortunate, because Sinners does have a message, a powerful one—about Black resilience and spirituality. And sometimes, in our rush to fit or fix a story to match our own frameworks, we miss what the art is actually trying to tell us.
So maybe instead of trying to reshape the film to fit our beliefs, let’s just sit with it, wrestle with it, enjoy it. Listen to what it’s saying. Let it speak on its own terms.
Black Spirituality At The Forefront
In contrast to Christianity’s playing the background, the spirituality that takes center stage in Sinners is African-American spirituality; particularly seen in traditions like Hoodoo, an African-American spiritual system involving folk magic, healing, and rituals that bring things like protection, justice, good fortune, and connection with ancestors. Now, I don’t know much about Hoodoo and the last film I saw it featured in was Eve’s Bayou so I’m really in no position to defend it or denigrate it. In Sinners, Hoodoo is present and it’s assumed. It’s a part of Southern Black spirituality and it’s been a part of African spirituality for centuries.
Annie, Smoke’s estranged wife is at the center of the Hoodoo rituals. She has him wearing a Mojo bag, which is believed to have protected him in war, in his travels, and throughout the events of the movie. She alone possessed all the knowledge about how to defeat the vampires. When we first see her in the film she stands behind a table in her house, working with herbs and roots, possibly for spiritual or medicinal purposes. When Smoke, doubtful of the tradition’s power, asks Annie why she, with her practices, wasn’t able to save their deceased infant daughter, Annie answers him honestly, “I don’t know.” Hoodoo isn’t a religion with a neatly crafted theological system, and like any spirituality or religious system, it’s not always effective. Originating from enslaved Africans, Hoodoo lives in the practical, concerned with things such as survival, love, healing, justice, and good fortune. It can be practiced by itself, but for many it’s practiced alongside and blended in with Christianity.
It’s no secret that Christianity frowns on traditions and spiritualities like Hoodoo and often refers to them as witchcraft and demonic. Again, my aim isn’t to defend it or denigrate it. But what Hoodoo is and what it’s for reminds me a lot of how ancient Israel once practiced spirituality - oftentimes for the same reasons of practicality in a difficult world: casting lots, using shining stones, interpreting dreams, even talking to seers. And that’s not even touching on the archaeology, which shows that ancient Israel often blended the spiritual customs of other cultures with their worship of YHWH. Sure, some of those things were later prohibited in the law, but that shift happened over time—and some believe it was only a small group that pushed for that stricter path.
The question is, why does Ryan Coogler decide to elevate this diasporic expression of Black spirituality to the forefront of his film? Is he trying to say that Hoodoo is better for Black people than Christianity? I don’t think so. This isn’t a Hoodoo documentary and Hoodoo is only the means to conquering the vampires. Only one character, Annie, actually practiced any rituals. Maybe he’s trying to display the overlooked diversity of Black spirituality among African-Americans. That’s possible. It could just be because this kind of spirituality is unique to the vampire movie genre. Only Ryan Coogler knows, but Black spirituality is only one piece of something bigger and I think there’s more to see if we’re gonna grasp exactly what he’s trying to say.
Cultural Reflections
The scene toward the end of the film—where Sammie gets interrupted saying the Lord’s Prayer —was definitely one of the most powerful cultural and historical moments in the whole film. But there were a lot of other moments that were worth reflecting on as well. One that stood out was when Remmick first showed up at the juke joint with his two undead associates, Joan and Bert, and their instruments. Unlike most Southern whites during the Jim Crow era, these three white visitors wanted to come inside the Black establishment to play their music together with everyone. Standing there at the door, Remmick and his bandmates said they were drawn by Sammie’s music, desired a community and connection with others, and sought to integrate the space in the name of “love and fellowship”. But instead of harmony, their presence would only lead to disharmony and destruction.
In a way that reminded me of Jordan Peele’s Get Out - where white people obsess over Black talent and Black bodies, Remmick only wanted to use Sammie for his abilities, so that he could take the stories and music of Black folks and use it for his purposes. This felt like a sharp critique of modern-day white liberals who show up in Black spaces talking about unity, but end up taking control and draining the very soul of what made those spaces unique. In contrast, the Black folks bitten by Remmick all ended up dancing in a circle to a (really dope) Irish tune outside of the club - a pretty accurate image of assimilation. This is why the vampire metaphor is so fitting in Sinners. Vampires suck the life out of things, and either kill them or turn them - and that’s exactly what happens when Black culture, art, music, and ingenuity—just existing on its own terms—is invaded by people looking to exploit it.
The Devil Isn’t Who You Think
Early on in the movie, someone asks the twin brothers, Smoke and Stack, why they left Chicago—a place that’s supposedly less racist—and came back to Mississippi. Their response? Basically, Chicago wasn’t any better. The racism was still there, just wearing a different mask. So in their eyes, it was better to deal with the devil you know than the one you don’t.
But in a horror movie about magic, ancestral spirits, and vampires, that makes you stop and think for a second—who is the devil, really?
If you’ve ever watched a vampire movie, you know it goes —vampires usually come off as the embodiment of evil, like devil-level evil. A lot of times, they’re either portrayed as devilish figures or literally the devil himself. So yes, I get why people might’ve thought Remmick was the devil. I mean, he’s 600 years old, his eyes are red (everyone else’s are gold), and while other vampires burn up and die in sunlight, he ascends in a blaze of fire. Oh, and he quotes scripture, which seems to be the biggest confirmation for most folks.
But here’s the thing: Remmick is more complicated than that. He’s actually an Irish immigrant who used to be just like Sammie—a musician with special abilities, until it was ripped away from him along with his soul. At the start of the film, he’s almost taken out by Choctaw natives—sizzling like a fish out a frying pan—and he ends up hiding out in the home of a white couple who are Klan supporters. All in all, Remmick is vulnerable. But he’s also very purposeful.
After seeing Sammie use music to call on Black ancestral spirits from the past, present, and future, Remmick wanted that too—for his own people, for his lost community. That’s mostly what he was after, in addition to forming a community of vampires powerful enough to escape prejudice and protect themselves. He even offered to spare everyone in the juke joint if they just gave him Sammie.
So no, I don’t think Remmick was the devil… But he definitely let us know who the real one was.
In most horror movies, nighttime is when things get scary. After the sun sets is when the monsters creep out, when evil really shows its face. But in Sinners, the real devils don’t show up until after the sun comes up.
Right before the night spirals into chaos, Remmick mentions plans made by the man who sold the twins the building earlier that day. He was in the Klan. And the plan was to ambush the place the next morning and slaughter everyone inside. So, when the sun rises and the vampires are finally gone, you think maybe the chaos is over... but no. That’s when a group of white men roll up in cars, guns loaded, ready to do what so many white men in the Jim Crow south did.
And just like that, the horror movie turns into a full-on action film. Dracula exits and Django enters—because Smoke snaps. The Black soldier takes on the entire Klan like it’s nothing, handing out more rounds than a tire shop. It’s wild. And honestly? Kind of satisfying.
I’ve already mentioned how some will watch Sinners and label it demonic - for Hoodoo rituals and vampires thirsting for blood. But if there's anything truly demonic in this film, it’s the Klan. It’s the real-life white Southerners who terrorized Black communities just for existing. The ones who ambushed, lynched, exploited, and stripped away rights from people just trying to live. Just for being Black. That’s the real evil. Actual spiritual darkness. That’s where the true monsters are. Vampires might be scary, sure—but the Klan? That’s horror pulled straight from history. If there really is a devil, one of the biggest lies we’ve ever been told is that he looks more like some red-eyed, fang-toothed vampire with claws than a smiling, racist white Klansman.
So what’s the message of this movie? I think more than anything else, Blackness is the real savior and star in this movie. Black people are beautiful, powerful, spiritual, and resilient, and this movie is a testament about all of those things coming together to defeat the soul-draining monsters of cultural appropriation and assimilation, and the body-destroying monsters of racial annihilation.
Smoke and Stack return home to give Black people a place to experience music, joy, and connection. A young Black musician’s gift supernaturally expands across time and connects ancestral spirits to the present. A Black woman’s intuition keeps the vampires out. Black spiritual rituals provide protection. A Black soldier’s final act is protecting his property from the Klan. Overall, it’s Black faith, Black spirituality, and Black resilience that’s on display in Sinners and Black people, with all of our spirituality, talents, strength, culture, and stories standing with us, are the true heroes of Sinners. They must be protected at all cost amidst the forces that seek to steal, kill, and destroy us.