Old School. Biblically Independent.
By Andrew Sanford | News | April 9, 2025
Ryan Coogler is one of the most exciting directors in recent memory. His debut film, Fruitvale Station, hit me like a Mack truck. It was devastating and beautiful. Creed made me cheer and cry in the theater as it buzzed with energy. I don’t have to tell you how much of a cultural phenomenon 2018’s Black Panther was. Then, Coogler did the absolute best he could with its sequel, managing to tell a story while dealing with unimaginable grief. His career is one I’ve felt privileged to follow. So you better believe I’m amped through the roof about his new horror movie, Sinners.
I know very few details about Sinners! Everything I’ve mentioned in the previous paragraph has implicitly led me to trust Coogler. To that end, I have not watched a single trailer for his new film. I know it takes place in the 1930s, has vampires, and Michael B. Jordan will play twins. While I wish Jordan would stop going to bat for Jonathan Majors, I’ll be seeing this movie as soon as I can. Everything about it sounds fantastic, and my excitement has doubled now that I’ve read Coogler wax poetic about his horror influences.
Sinners will be the director’s first horror film. When he was recently interviewed at Deadline, he was asked about his go-to horror. Coogler’s answer? Steven Spielberg. “I consider Spielberg’s work in the horror space to be a bit of a North Star,” he explained. “And it is complicated with him, right, because he hasn’t out and out made a horror movie before. But I would classify Jaws as a creature feature horror film, and Jurassic Park as well. Jurassic Park is a stealth horror movie.” Pretty rad! And Coogler isn’t the only director to look to Spielberg as a horror influence, as we saw with Jordan Peele’s Nope.
Coogler also listed a more recent horror influence when he asked the interviewer if he had ever seen Green Room. If you are reading this and haven’t seen Green Room, go fix that immediately. If you need more than my recommendation, here’s Ryan Coogler’s. “[I]t is basically like the house of horrors movie played for real over 24 hours. This semi-pro punk band gets stuck in a venue in rural Oregon that’s owned by neo-Nazis that are led by Patrick Stewart. And it is brilliant, bro.” That about sums it up! The movie is tense and terrifying and has one of the most intense injuries/wounds I have ever seen onscreen.
The Black Panther director also enjoyed the realistic injuries from the film, as he brought the person behind them over to Sinners. “And the makeup effects are so stark that I hired the guy that did them, for Sinners,” Coogler noted. “A guy named Mike Fontaine, who’s exceptional, a savant. He’s the guy who put the penguin prosthetics on Colin Farrell for that show.” I can’t think of a bigger compliment to a movie than “I hired the people who worked on it to make mine.” My eyes will never view a trailer for Sinners. This stuff is more than enough of an appetizer.
As if all of this wasn’t enough, Coogler also praises John Carpenter. He loves The Thing and Halloween. Oh, and he’s a fan of Robert Rodriguez’s work on From Dusk Till Dawn and The Faculty. I don’t want to say anything too controversial and I’m sure Dustin will get some emails about this but dang it it needs to be said. I think Ryan Coogler is a very talented director and his new horror movie, Sinners, is probably going to rule. There! Glad I got that off my chest.
