Sinners: The Rising of Folk Horror

Spoilers for Sinners (2025), consider yourself warned and warded

I've always felt myself drawn to the supernatural, strange, and otherworldly in fiction. That which is unknown but passed down through oral tradition and ritual practice. It is unsurprising then that my favourite flavour of horror fiction comes in the shape of Folk Horror, styled in the fashions of the vernacular cultures of its own origins. Stock folk horror "tropes" that are understood commercially include cults, countryside living, ancient rituals, and the like. The archetype example of folk horror cinema is The Wicker Man, however other films like The VVitch, Midsommar, and my personal favourite (until now), The Ritual are among the most popular examples of this sub-genre. The genre has immense potential to push these popular tropes aside and walk in the bones of the genre in new and inspired fashions. Which brings me to Sinners.

Provided you heeded the spoiler warning, you've no doubt seen Ryan Coogler's 2025 horror masterpiece. The film is astonishing for myriad reasons, including the deal Coogler negotiated with Warner Bros. to retain control over his art, a deal that some execs are worried "Could End the Studio System" (Here's hoping!).

Even more impressive is that despite the considerable historical references and influences on the film, Sinners is an original work of film with no connections to pre-existing IP or franchises. Even with what would be considered a major "disadvantage" in the 21st-century cinema, Sinners has dominated the April 2025 box office and is already considered a masterpiece of 21st-century filmmaking. This alone gives me hope that the future of filmmaking is not about IP or AI or WB, but original stories told by those who have a voice worth using.

To me, Sinners is incredible as a gestalt folk horror film where every factor contributes to the whole in such a way it could be argued that any one role or decision is just as critical as the others. I want to highlight three of these: The music, the folk horror, and finally Coogler and his crew's craft itself all work together to elevate the film to a complete gamechanger in the genre and medium.

To limit credit of the incredible score and music of this film to Ludwig Göransson would be a disservice to both the incredible diegetic performances of the film like Miles Caton, Jayme Lawson, or Jack O'Connell, as well to Göransson himself who scores the film as a collaborator, not a composer. Together, the artists effortlessly to create a bed of sound that permeates the film. If Sinners had any other score it would be as if the film had no colour, lighting, or framing.

This collaborative bed of sound does make it fiendishly difficult to discuss as each piece affects the others. The history influences the folk culture which influences the story which influences the choices of music which influences the score which influences the choices of folk cultures which influences the story and so on. The film's prologue and accompanying track "Filídh, Fire Keepers, and Grigots," narrated by Annie (Wunmi Mosaku), breaks down the three main cultures of the film (Irish, Choctaw, and West African) and what they stand against: evil spirits attracted to the music so true it could pierce the veil. The film makes a smart and (quite frankly) ethical choice to not make up a name to apply to all three of these social groups like "bard" or "speakers." Coogler is deliberate and respectful to the cultural distinctions of each kind of musical culture but does make the "evil spirits" one group. Visual signifiers like the red-eyed evil at the window and the visual design of Remmick (Jack O'Connell) make it clear that the vampires are what these groups stand against even if they stand in their own way.

Although the Irish filídh, Choctaw fire keepers, and West African grigots are all presented together, the score highlights their differences with snippets of their music, notably a verse of "The Rocky Road to Dublin" for the filídh. Although the song is used in full in one of the film's multiple showstopping music sequences, the melody itself is used as Remmick's leit motif when he appears more sympathetic than vampiric (including his final sunrise).

The grigots however, are the most important to Sinners. Although Sammie (Miles Caton) is never explicitly confirmed to be a grigot in the traditional West African sense, he connects to his ancestors and descendants through music in perhaps the best "one-take" shot I've seen in a long time. The entire "I Lied to You" sequence is gorgeous, inspiring, and perfectly encapsulates how filmmaking and practical special effects can create a tone of magical realism. One aspect that I have yet to see discussed is that although most of the ancestors and descendants Sammie connects to are of his own culture, Bo and Grace Chow (Yao, Li Jun Li) also share the space and community and as a result their own ancestors join in the celebration. The entire sequence can thematically be summarized by two of the film's central ideas "for a few hours, we was free" and "this can also attract evil". Music has the power to heal, unite communities, and bring fame and fortune to those with that power, but like any power, it attracts the hungry.

You can see this reflected in Remmick's own imitation of this moment during the "Rocky Road to Dublin" sequence. While that entire track is, indeed, a bop, it is absolutely terrifying in context. Desperate for the same communal celebration that the Smokestack Twins (Michael B. Jordan, Michael B. Jordan) have created and the ancestral magic of Sammie and his music, Remmick reanimates the juke joint outside on his terms where his spawn dance to his music by his will. Remmick tries to conjure his own ancestry and forces the words and music upon his ravening hive mind. But unlike "I Lied to You," which openly features various music styles such as traditional drums, disc jockeys, electric guitars, and more influences that blend and share the space with Sammie, "Rocky Road to Dublin" used buried 808s to indicate how African-American culture has been assimilated and used without being allowed to share the space.

The choice to make Remmick Irish, not just an immigrant but most likely a pre-Christian Irishman, who speaks with a Carolinian accent and begins the film on the run from Choctaw indigenous vampire hunters (side note: there needs to be a feature length, Indigenous-produced movie about the Choctaw vampire hunters) is perhaps one of the most inspired choices in writing a period piece I've seen. The folk elements here are specific, precise, and drawn from history. For contrast, take a film like Django Unchained. If Tarantino were to write and direct it like From Dusk Till Dawn (One of the films most audiences have drawn comparisons to) he would most likely make characters like Calvin Candy and the other plantation owners vampires. Confederate and by extension blatant white supremacist vampires are surprisingly common from Twilight to True Blood to The Vampire Diaries to Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter. And while the Klu Klux Klan are indeed present in the film's first and final acts, Coogler makes the smart choice and instead keeps them an evil that walks in the daylight. With his vampires, Coogler pulls from folk traditions across the world to craft a more insidious political analogy with Remmick's "family".

Part of what makes Sinners work well as a horror movie and as folk horror is the use of tropes and features pulled not just from vampires and their film counterparts, but from a different ghoul: the zombie. Although commodified and assimilated into American culture, the zombie is a Haitian concept, deeply rooted in the experiences of enslaved Africans who carried on Vodun traditions in what became Hoodoo/Hoodou and Voodoo (which by the way are closed spiritual practices. If you're white, you really should not be taking what isn't yours from those you already took so much from).

In essence, the zombie is very much like what Annie describes the vampire to be in Sinners: a soul imprisoned within the flesh of their body. Made into something monstrous, never free, and undead. It's origins come from slavery and fears of being enslaved within your own body for eternity. Sinners thus creates a new interpretation of all three concepts: Coogler's vampires are undead with their souls trapped within their own bodies, unable to move on to the other side but also spread their contagion as ghoulish necrophages. This desire to spread and feed additionally highlights the common character trait of obsession prevalent within vampire media. Zombies biting you and turning you is a little scary, but a vampire that was so scared before they turned that smiles and begs to be let in to turn you is horrific.

This usage of the original folk tradition of the zombie, combined with the more peculiar weaknesses of the vampire present in the film, create a distinctly African-American folk horror setting. Although played for laughs in parodies and "grounded" takes on the nosferatu, the adherence to belief in the threshold and garlic are treated with sincerity and respect and thus re-contextualized within Hoodoo practices of protecting the threshold and applying the knowledge of herbs and plants passed down from mother to child. The protective powers of Hoodoo is specifically part of what makes Sinners even more of a folk horror than anything else, as it is these practices that actually help the characters rather than traditional Christian symbols such as the Lord's Prayer.

Coogler strikes the perfect balance between the zombie and the vampire in the undead that plague the juke joint. Although the sudden bursts of violence and blood certainly contribute to the unease and fear in your heart as you watch the night unfold, the horror of the creatures is how they change. The fear and terror of their victims is erased as their minds become overruled by the hive mind of Remmick's coven. This additionally serves as a more unconventional portrayal of the hypnotic charm that has been long since associated with the vampire since Dracula (though this interview with Cornbread's actor Omar Benson Miller implies the vampires had been exerting control far earlier in the film and on the living as well) but has never been so terrifying as it is here.

Although many forms of vampire media portray the spawn as being connected and controlled by their sire, this is usually only discussed by those who have already been turned when the story starts like the brides in Dracula or Cazador's spawn in Baldur's Gate 3. By showing exactly who these characters are and how different they become after they join Remmick's coven, Coogler is able to reach deep inside your mind to force you to confront the fear of assimilation in a more visceral way than any Dawn of the Dead flick. It's one thing for characters to lose themselves to being a zombie, it's another thing entirely to see them retain just enough of themselves to be people but so totally assimilated that you fear who they've become.

Assimilation is what Remmick forces upon the people of Clarksdale, stripping them of their culture to feed his own loneliness. The community of the juke joint was multi-cultural and multi-racial. They had a variety of backgrounds from plantations to clergy to herbalists to shop owners to mobsters. When, one by one, they become picked off, they are only vampires. Take Mary. (Hailee Steinfeld) Her ancestry places her in a complicated relationship with the other characters, especially as she's grieving the loss of her mother and struggling with her feelings. Once she is turned, she becomes a vampire and all that she was before is erased. She has been severed from her culture just like Remmick was. By forcing this upon her, Remmick has become the very colonizer he resents so much. She has been made into a zombie, trapped within flesh that is not her own anymore. You can hear this very idea in the track "In Moonlight" which utilizes much of the heavy metal motifs Göransson uses for Remmick's more monstrous scenes, where "in moonlight, wash away all the colour" is repeated as the song ends.

Remmick craves a filídh, but because of what he has become, he cannot connect to his ancestors like Sammie can. So, he tries to forcibly take Sammie for himself. He outright says "I want your stories" to Sammie in the climax, outright admitting he wants to possess what Sammie has without any respect for Sammie. As Delta Slim lamented earlier in the film, "white folks love the blues, not so much the folk who play it." Vampirism does not represent the Klan and the white supremacy that seeks to eradicate, it represents the "American melting pot" of white supremacy that seeks to consume, erase, and assimilate all difference into one monolithic, Pan-American culture.

There is an additional layer to this simultaneous conversion and erasure of culture and that is the erasure of Remmick's own heritage as told through the lyrics of "Rocky Road to Dublin." Twice in the song, there is a reference to a shillelagh, a traditional Irish walking stick and weapon made of blackthorn wood. The shillelagh is used both to fight "ghosts and goblins" and "by's of Liverpool" who "poor old Erin's isle, they began abusing." In other words, the shillelagh is for protecting the community just as much as it's the tool of the wandering traveler, not unlike the guitar of a wandering rhythm and blues player. And while Remmick attempts to persuade the survivors of the juke joint to join him in undeath in order to fight the Klan that are coming come morning, it's clear he's using these people for his own selfish desire for community without putting in the work that making space for community requires.

The Shillelagh is applied, metaphorically speaking, when Sammie takes his uncle's blackwood guitar and smashes it (and the silver plate over it) into Remmick's skull once the Lord's Prayer fails. Just as the garlic and threshold represent traditional African folk traditions being used to ward against this apparition of the zombie in the form of the vampire, the silver and black guitar is able to represent the Irish traditions lost to Remmick's people and the African-American folk traditions made by Sammie's people. Although he lost his connection to community, Remmick is at last freed by the very same music that Sammie's father believed would send him to Hell.

What makes Sinners stand out as folk horror is that these ancient traditions and ways, not the words of colonizers like the Lord's Prayer, are what protect Smoke and Sammie. In the same vein, the vernacular traditions of the colonizer like Christianity are symbols of horror and terror. It's why Remmick mockingly baptizes Sammie in the water surrounding the mill as he repeats the Lord's Prayer to him, soothing him of his fate to join his new family by assuring him that the words of the colonizer he despises still bring him comfort.

Having discussed the incredible use of music in Sinners as well as the use of folk horror and creating new stories from the folklore that came before, I want to highlight the choices Coogler makes as director that make the film so good, especially the pacing.

Much of the criticism I've seen related to the film was related to the pacing, highlighting that the film takes awhile to really "start" and seems to end five times. I think this is disingenuous as it misunderstands the value of the film's structure. Choices of characters like Mary and Grace also drew massive critique from those who don't seem to understand a) characters don't know what genre they're in and b) a mother who, mind you, was told by a vampire that they will come for her daughter—the same vampire who killed her husband and converted him into a monster who wants to kill her, and also was the same vampire who spoke to her in her native language about her own sexual preferences to violate her privacy—might be in a very volatile headspace.

All this to say, critiques of the film's structure made by those with this same callous disregard for characterization may not have understood the value of the first act. For nearly the first hour of the film, Coogler takes the time to establish characters, relationships, and the world of the Delta region of Mississippi to make sure that the audience understands this community enough to feel the violation of Remmick's assimilation. Without the introduction, without seeing how the day before the night was the best day of Sammie's life, without knowing the pain and trauma of these individuals, you cannot feel the pain, relief, and pathos of the finale.

Coogler needs to take extra time with his first act because he has to walk a tight line with his casting of Michael B. Jordan as twins. Coogler has to convince the audience that the same actor is playing both characters at once while simultaneously ensuring the audience knows which is Smoke and which is Stack. The costuming here is the stand-out filmmaking technique for the latter, while the technical mastery of cameras and programmed-dollies allow for the magic of the double casting to be pulled off seamlessly. However, it is not enough to simply know which is which by look, you as the audience need to understand how different these two brothers are, and so time must be taken to explore their lives in intimate detail so that their individual fates can resonate with you.

Pulling off an ensemble film is difficult, resolving a genre film where not one or two but three protagonists get fully realized character arcs and epilogues is exceptionally difficult and it's a testament to Coogler as a screenwriter and director to be able to communicate all of this to the audience in one film. This is also why I don't mind the multiple endings of the film, as Coogler is able to provide a unique finale to Smoke, Stack, and Sammie at once.

As a final note, I want to discuss the epilogue which ties together all of these elements of music, folk horror, and community. Initially, I was too preoccupied with fear and tension over the appearance of Stacks and Mary as children of the night to appreciate their conversation. Having had time to think it over, I believe this scene will haunt me, not for the tension of that conversation but for the pathos of the loss these three share. Sammie plays "Travelin'" for Stacks and Mary after rejecting their offer of community. Rather than bring the ancestors and descendants to the Chicago Blues Club, it only conjures flashbacks, memories, and the feeling of that last day in the sun with Smoke, Sammie, and Mary felt as though everything would be alright.

In short, go see Sinners. You may be wondering why I would put this here when anyone who's read this far has either already seen it or doesn't care for spoilers, and that's because I truly believe Sinners is worth seeing again and experiencing the emotion, music, and power once more. I know in my heart that this essay has barely scratched the surface of analysis that this film inspires in an attentive audience. This is a movie that, even more than Nosferatu, has confirmed the sign that the genre of vampire movies has yet to stay dead, like the legend of Abhartach of Eire. I highly recommend you see this movie again, and if you somehow haven't seen it yet, see it as soon and as often as you can.