By MICHAEL GINGOLD
The filmmaker promises his first venture into fright territory is a “genre-fluid” experience.
Warner Bros. just dropped the new trailer (see it at the bottom of this page) for SINNERS, the much-awaited new movie from acclaimed director Ryan Coogler. The previous preview teased a period terror tale starring Coogler’s regular collaborator Michael B. Jordan as twin brothers tangling with the supernatural, and now we know that–as has been much-speculated on-line–bloodsucking creatures of the night are involved.
“There are vampires in the film,” Coogler confirms during an on-line press event, “but it’s really about a lot more than just that; it’s one of many elements. SINNERS is a unique one; it’s kind of genre-bending, it’s genre-fluid. I think we’re going to surprise people with it.
“The film deals with American blues music,” he elaborates, “and if you know the story of Robert Johnson, all of that is there–hoodoo culture, Elegba, all of these concepts and ideas. When you think about the vampire, it’s got an association and a counterpart in almost every culture, and it is the supernatural creature that’s most associated with seduction, that’s most associated with choice. That aspect is something that’s very present, and blues music was also called ‘the devil’s music.’ It’s the contrast between a secular lifestyle and that, you know what I’m saying? So the film is in conversation with all of those things.”
SINNERS, which Warner Bros. releases to theaters April 18, is Coogler’s fifth film following the fact-based FRUITVALE STATION, the ROCKY spinoff CREED and the two BLACK PANTHER epics. A longtime horror fan, he reveled in the opportunity to explore the scary side. “It was my first time experimenting with the genre head on, and I loved it. I got to dig into the films that I loved coming up, and analyze why I loved them and what drew me to them, and look at all these influences and figure out a way to tell my story in that space. It’s interesting, because it’s a genre that’s for the people, for the popular consumers of film, but it’s also a genre that comes up when people ask about great pieces of art. It feels ancient, like the first story we probably told around a fire was a horror story, but it also always feels fresh, somehow. I was so excited to try my hand at it.
“I drew on so many [influences],” he continues. “[There’s] a lot of Coen Brothers influence in this, starting with, I would say, INSIDE LLEWYN DAVIS, some O BROTHER [WHERE ART THOU?] in there, definitely some FARGO, definitely some NO COUNTRY [FOR OLD MEN]. Robert Rodriguez was a big one; [if you want to be] on the nose, it would be very easy to make the FROM DUSK TILL DAWN comparison, but it’s actually quite close to THE FACULTY, which is [like] a remake of THE THING, which is one of my favorite movies, definitely my favorite horror movie. So there’s a lot of Carpenter in the film as well.
“But truthfully, the biggest influence is not from cinema: the novel SALEM’S LOT. That’s a massive influence on the film. And then there’s a real deep-cut influence: My favorite thing ever made is Rod Serling’s THE TWILIGHT ZONE, and my favorite episode of that is called ‘The Last Rites of Jeff Myrtlebank.’ SALEM’S LOT and ‘The Last Rites of Jeff Myrtlebank are probably the biggest influences.”
The trailer promises a striking visual experience as well as a frightening one, and Coogler enjoyed the opportunity to shoot SINNERS on film. “It’s my first [time] back on celluloid since FRUITVALE. I’m a big fan of that medium, so I was excited to be back working there. And it made a lot of sense for the time period, to bring it back to that kind of analog capture. And Warner Bros. allowed us to shoot in large format. It’s the first film ever done like this: It alternates between Super Panavision, which is a 2.76:1 aspect ratio, and we also filmed quite a few scenes with 1.43:1 IMAX film, 15-perf. But every shot is large-format photography, and it makes for a really unique look. It’s intimate, it feels old and fresh at the same time.”
Helping to deliver the shocks are the makeup effects by artist Michael Fontaine. “He did a film called GREEN ROOM, which was also another influence on this one. I remember some of the effects–they weren’t creature effects, but some of the effects made me look away. So I sought him out, and he was on the team that was making Colin Farrell into The Penguin, and he’s a young, incredible artist. Just digging into it with him and finding all those moments that could make people look away was really awesome. And working with Michael Ralla, our visual effects supervisor, who I worked with on WAKANDA FOREVER–those two together, in terms of really working to creep people out when the time was right in the movie, was just awesome. That was an interesting challenge.”
There was one practical issue to consider when filming the gorier moments, however: “You’ve got to dress a certain way for those scenes. Me and my wife Zinzi, who’s a producer on this, on certain days, because I direct close to the camera and close to the actors, we got covered in blood [laughs].”
