It’s probably safe to say that vampires have become a bit overplayed in horror, with every director from Joel Schumacher to Francis Ford Coppola taking a whack at putting their own spin on the undead creatures of the night. But if there’s one director who could freshen things up for the bloodsuckers, it’s Ryan Coogler, whose period thriller Sinners hits theaters next month. Warner Bros. has just released a new clip from the film, previewing the kind of hell the Black Panther director is creating with his new twist on the monsters everybody loves.
The clip features Coogler’s take on a classic vampire moment — trying to convince humans to welcome them across the threshold so they can wreak havoc. Michael B. Jordan is naturally suspicious of someone who’d strolled in without a care in the world only hours earlier, and it’s no surprise when things hit the fan and it’s revealed that yes, that is indeed a vampire standing on his doorstep.
“It's genre fluid,” Coogler previously said of the film during a press conference, where he also cited influences like The Faculty and the Twilight Zone episode “The Last Rites of Jeff Myrtlebank” alongside vampire projects like Salem’s Lot. “There are vampires in the film, but it's really about a lot more than just that. It's one of many elements. And I'm… I think we're going to surprise people with it.”
Coogler says that they did plenty of research of hoodoo culture to make sure that they weren’t simply chucking supernatural elements into an early 20th century setting simply because it looks cool, joking that “the consultants list on this… it was a mile long.” But while the film plays in the realm of the supernatural, its Deep South setting is as real as Coogler could possibly make it. “We wanted the world to be extremely tactile,” he says, crediting his team, including production designer Hannah Beachler and Oscar-winning costume designer Ruth Carter, with bringing that vision to life.
Sinners, also starring Wunmi Mosaku, Delroy Lindo, Miles Caton, and Li Jun Li, hits theaters on April 18. Check out the new clip below.
