Sinners Is More Tarantino Fairy Tale Than Southern Gothic Horror

Ryan Coogler’s Sinners is being sold as a horror film, but let’s not kid ourselves — it isn’t. Horror is supposed to terrify, to drip with dread, to make you feel unsafe. Sinners never gets there. The vampires are polite, the finale swerves into a Tarantino-style shootout with the KKK, and along the way the script spends more time joking about oral sex than it does building fear. Domestically, it’s a box office hit with nearly $280 million, but overseas it fizzled. Because here’s the truth: Sinners isn’t horror. It’s a gothic-flavored drama that mistakes style and sex talk for scares.

Ryan Coogler’s Sinners Deal Could Save Theaters — If Hollywood Doesn’t Screw It Up

There’s a quiet kind of heartbreak in watching the movie industry drift further away from the thing that made it special. It used to be about the experience—sitting in the dark with strangers, surrendering to a story too big for a living room. But somewhere along the way, it all got flattened into “content.” Streamers … Continue reading Ryan Coogler’s Sinners Deal Could Save Theaters — If Hollywood Doesn’t Screw It Up

Stop Comparing “Sinners” to Tarantino’s Movie — It’s Not 2019 Anymore

There’s this weird obsession online right now with dragging The New York Times over its coverage of Sinners—Ryan Coogler’s Southern Gothic horror epic that just opened at number one with a $48 million domestic haul. People are pissed that the Times called it a “box office success (with a big asterisk)” and then launched into … Continue reading Stop Comparing “Sinners” to Tarantino’s Movie — It’s Not 2019 Anymore

Everyone Wants a Sinners Franchise Except the Guy Who Made It

There’s something weirdly exhausting about what happens when a movie like Sinners becomes a hit. Not just because it breaks through the noise—though thank God it did—but because the minute it lands, everyone scrambles to ask the same question: What’s next?Not “what’s next for Coogler?” Not “what’s next for cinema?” But Sinners 2 when?I get … Continue reading Everyone Wants a Sinners Franchise Except the Guy Who Made It

Sinners Was Made for America—And That Might Be the Problem

There’s a moment happening right now in Hollywood that feels a little too good to be true—like we’re watching a glitch in the system, or maybe, just maybe, a spark of hope for people who still care about movies made by actual human beings. Ryan Coogler’s Sinners opened this weekend and didn’t just make a … Continue reading Sinners Was Made for America—And That Might Be the Problem

Why Hollywood Is Sweating Over Sinners Before It Even Opens

Ryan Coogler’s Sinners hasn’t even opened yet, and the knives are already out. Not from critics—those folks are lining up with glowing reviews and a 99% Rotten Tomatoes score to prove it—but from within the very system that greenlit the movie in the first place. The word on the street is that Sinners needs to … Continue reading Why Hollywood Is Sweating Over Sinners Before It Even Opens