Sinners: The Fear about "Living Forever"

Many critics focus on the political metaphors in Sinners, but I believe this perspective misses the film's essence. Sinners uses vampires as its main narrative backdrop—and for beings with lifespans of thousands of years, fleeting human politics cannot profoundly impact their existence. In other words, vampires don't concern themselves with human political affairs. When they encounter human forces they dislike, they can simply take a long sleep and wake up to a new world. In Sinners, director Ryan Coogler acknowledges this reality. He abandons the traditional "vampires versus religious forces" setup and instead crafts vampire weaknesses through organic elements—herbs, garlic, and wood—aiming to return viewers' interpretation of vampires to a biological level while incorporating mystical elements to showcase humanity's fear of these immortal beings.

Over the past decade, the prevalence of vampire themes in romance novels has made many readers forget how truly terrifying vampires are as a species. In these novels, vampires invariably appear as irresistible beings, possessing otherworldly beauty, noble status, elegant manners, and limitless wealth. The stories follow a predictable pattern: after falling in love with a human, the vampire protagonist faces three crucial choices—whether to continue drinking human blood, whether to betray their clan, and whether to turn their human love interest into a vampire. While this formula creates dramatic tension, it inherently lacks horror. From the vampires' perspective, humans are the truly terrifying characters—they move freely in daylight, wield various tools to kill vampires, and can easily seize the vampires' wealth. Humans face no consequences for hunting vampires simply because vampires are presumed evil.

If vampires existed in the 21st century, they would become the most exploited beings in society. Governments would devise ways to tax their wealth, pharmaceutical companies would imprison them for cancer research, and religious extremists would execute them in secret. Even the criminal underworld would reject them, with new gang members proving their worth by hunting vampires. The 21st century simply isn't suited for vampire survival.

How can we continue crafting truly horrifying vampire tales? While Nosferatu, released last year, recaptured the horror of vampires through audiovisual elements, Sinners (2025) prompts audiences to examine vampires through a fresh narrative lens.

Sinners presents a straightforward story spanning just twenty-four hours: twin brothers, having accumulated wealth through big-city crime, seek redemption by opening a bar in their hometown. That very night, the singing from their bar somehow draws the attention of a group of vampires.

You might wonder: "Why would singing attract vampires?".

The director Ryan Coogler addresses this question through narration: certain human voices possess the power to transcend time and space, drawing forth beings who don't belong in our world. For humans, vampires are such beings. Though this explanation appears reasonable at first, it soon gives way to a deeper question to emerge: why is it specifically human singing? That's where the story's true mysteries begin to unfold.

Sinners features many human characters bound by their limitations. First is Sammie, a singer whose voice mysteriously attracts vampires. Blessed with extraordinary musical talent, he faces a dilemma: he loves blues music, but his father, a pastor, wants him to compose hymns. Though he loves his father deeply, his passion draws him to bars—places his father condemns as sinful. Sammie's visits have nothing to do with alcohol, but his father may never understand that because he doesn't know anything about blues music. While Sammie could follow his father's path into ministry, he knows he could never match his father's devotion because he doesn't know faith the way his father does.

Understanding transcends mere intellectual knowledge; it requires a deeper spiritual resonance. The former cannot be easily transformed into the latter.

Let's turn to the twin brothers, Smoke and Stack. Smoke's life changed forever when he lost his child, a tragedy that also destroyed his marriage to Beatrice. Despite her mastery of witchcraft, Beatrice couldn't save their child. Stack's story carries its own heartbreak: he fell in love with a white woman in his youth, but the racial barriers in that era made their marriage impossible. His ultimate expression of love became an act of sacrifice—leaving her so she could marry a white man, though her heart belonged elsewhere.

Now we turn to the vampire premise. Immortality and immunity to disease stand as core attributes of their kind. If the characters above possessed these abilities, their troubles would probably evaporate. Consider the church's doctrine—its power lies in the promise of heaven or threat of hell after death. But what if humans never died? This doctrine would lose its foundation. While humans view children as their life's continuation, biology shows us that longer-living species typically produce fewer offspring. Vampires perpetuate differently—not through reproduction, but by transforming others into their kind. As for Stack's love story, he and his beloved could simply hibernate until the 21st century (or perhaps the 22nd, since many of the barriers still persist).

Indeed, if humans achieved immortality, they might lose their drive to solve problems—after all, time would eventually wash away all troubles.

Coogler explores this through vampire leader Bert's revelatory words to Sammie. After reciting biblical passages about divine strength, Bert reveals: "We are earth and beast and god. We are woman and man. We are connected, you and I, to everything." This suggests a profound sameness among vampires—they erase differences by converting others into their kind. Yet this raises a crucial question: in a group without individual differences, how can anyone define "you" or "me"?

Moreover, Coogler's vampires aren't merely immortal individuals. They share memories across their entire species. Their life experiences form a collective amalgamation of every member's experiences. Against this vast and endless shared consciousness, the privacy of individual experiences fades into insignificance.

Losing privacy is more terrifying than death itself, for it means you never truly lived as yourself.

For the characters under Coogler's lens, their diverse psychological traumas drive them to transcend themselves in unique ways. Though they loathe their psychological wounds, they share a common conviction that only themselves can resolve their inner conflicts. By joining the vampires, they would forfeit this chance for self-transcendence forever.

Now, back to our initial question: why would human singing hold such power? Coogler provides an answer through his characters at the end of the film:

Old Sammie: You know something? Maybe once a week, I wake up paralyzed reliving that night. But before the sun went down, I think that was the best day of my life. Was it like that for you?

Stack: No doubt about it. Last time I seen my brother. Last time I seen the sun. And just for a few hours, we were free.

By this scene, Sammie has spent his life singing the blues and was nearing death from old age. Though he has pursued his dream throughout his life, his finest day wasn't from his performing career—it was that nightmarish evening before leaving town. Is he a masochist? Not at all. He makes clear that the night brought him pain, yet after sunset, he came to view that day as beautiful. How did Sammie heal from his trauma in just one day? We may never know, but we can be certain that by day's end, he had accepted his life. He has separated the "nightmarish" part of that day from the "beautiful" part, acknowledging the beauty without letting the darkness overshadow it. Though nightmares might still wake him, he could always return to this practice—embracing the beautiful moments without rejecting his entire experience.

Stack's response reveals the limitations of vampiric existence. His immortality failed to bring transcendence—he can neither reunite with his brother nor experience the shifting moods between day and night. Unlike Sammie, Stack won't face death from old age, but he also can't shape his life through choices as Sammie does. Though Stack purchased all of Sammie's albums and he could preserve this music forever due to his immortality, he can never truly sing like Sammie—he'll never possess the mortal perspective that shapes how Sammie chooses to sing.

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