SINNERS: Why Delusion Feeds on Hunger & Loss

Are you really a Sinner if you’re hungry for something you want? That’s Sammie. For someone you lost? That’s Smoke, Annie, Stack, and Mary. Or, for something prejudice, hate, or war tells you, you don’t deserve? That’s everyone in Ryan Coogler’s Sinners. If you’re struggling with these hungers, and afraid you’re “a sinner,” reality can be awfully hard to bear. You have to find hope somewhere; a way out of despair. That’s why a voice of delusion (that’s Remmick) can tempt you …

Is Hunger to Live Your Own Life “Sinful?”  

People might try to tell you that your hunger is “sinful.” Make you feel bad about it. Or that you’re bad for it. But is hunger to be free to live your own life bad? Sammie’s (Miles Caton) preacher father (Saul Williams) makes him feel that way. Maybe it’s out of fear of Sammie being in danger, so he’s supposed to be happy staying in the house of God. Well, there is danger around. The Ku Klux Klan, people who want to “keep you in your place,” whatever that means, and rob you of your freedoms, telling you there’s something wrong with you. That’s the nature of trauma, especially if you believe it. Sammie fights that belief through all of Sinners. So do the rest. 

Is there something wrong with Sammie? All he wants to do is play the blues on his blues guitar. What makes that a sinful thing? It’s almost like here comes the snake in the Garden of Eden. Warning you not to cross a line. Not to take what you desire. It’s the same for Smoke and Stack (Michael B. Jordan). They just want to turn their lives around. Help their people. Stop their Chicago ways, working for the Italian Mafia. They want to do good. Open a blues joint called Club Juke where people can be safe to come alive to music. To be together. Where Sammie and Delta Slim (Delroy Lindo) can play, and they, and anyone who wants to come, can sing and dance freely.

Is that too much to ask? But there are people and even forces inside you that get in the way, tell you that you'd better not reach for what you want. “Evil” might happen. You'd better play it safe.

Love is one thing. Loss is another.

The Problem of Hunger (Love & Loss) 

Is it sinning to love someone so much that it hurts to lose them? Hurts so much that you have to drink away your pain? Or run with gangsters to try to make something of yourself? Love stirs up hunger. Forbidden love, unavailable love, or lost love are even worse. That’s part of Sinners. And, if you’ve had past trauma and don’t feel you can keep love, that makes love all the more scary.

Delta Slim loved his friend, who was going to use his playing money to start a church. But the Klan framed him, accused him of raping a white woman, stole his money, lynched him, and cut off his manhood. What do you do with that kind of pain? You escape the best you can. You hum and rhythmically bang your hands to forget, if you can forget. And, use all your money on drinking.

Smoke loves Annie. Loves Annie (Wunmi Mosaku) more than anyone in the world. But they lost their baby daughter. And grief got in the way of their love. Loss leaves you lonely and hungry.

Then there’s Remmick (Jack O’Connell). He’s not just any vampire. He’s a vampire because of his losses. When he shows up at Bert's (Peter Dreimanis) and Joan’s (Lola Kirke) door, he claims the Injun’s are after him and they killed his wife. He’s a vampire because of the severe trauma he’s suffered. He’s hungry for blood and needs to stay alive to be sure he gets even. Bert and Joan are his best victims because they are KKK; the same as the Christians who tormented his Irish family, robbed them of their rights, and killed them all. He loved them. He’s left only with his longing.

Hungry vampires go after the hungry ones. The lost, desperate, lonely ones. They do. In Sinners.

A Voice of Delusion Calls to You

What do you want most when you’ve lost someone? To find them again. To never have to part. To be with them forever. That’s the hunger of vampires in Sinners. That’s Remmick and his promises: “He’s all better now.” “Fellowship and love. Fellowship and love.” “You need savin’.” Mary tries to flee. Yet, Mary wants savin.’ She wants Stack forever. So, she seduces him and bites.

Mary’s (Hailee Steinfeld) one of the most vulnerable to Remmick’s lure. She just lost her mom, and she’s angry at Stack and Smoke for not sending flowers. Really, she’s hurt that Stack is trying to “protect her” (rejecting her in the likeness of protection), just as her grandpa tried to protect her mom from the KKK. She’s ¼ Black, wants to belong, loves Stack, and wants him to be with her.

Rejection leads to hunger. Loneliness does too. Mary’s lonely in the marriage to a white man that Stack arranged (“I wanted you safe. And that was never gon’na be here. And, it was never gon’na be with me.”) Yes, she’s lonely for Stack. Hurt. Angry. Willful. Mary will have what she wants. That shouldn’t be her downfall. And that shouldn’t have to lead her into Remmick’s delusional lure.  

But sometimes delusion seems more real than reality itself. Brings more “possibility.” In Remmick’s delusional world, she can be with Stack forever, right? Nothing can tear them apart. Certainly not the KKK. Death. Or, anyone else, either. And that can seem like the only way out of despair. “Your club was built on lies. What Uncle Hogwood (Dave Maldonado) don’t know is we’re gonna build ourselves a new club based upon LOVE.” “Once we kill you all, it’ll be heaven on earth.”

That’s manna to hungry and desperate ears. Remmick’s beliefs appeal ...

Why Delusion Feeds on Hunger

“I am your way out. This world already left you for dead. Won’t let you build. Won’t let you fellowship. We will do just that. Together. Forever.” No hunger anymore. Never. Forever. “You know there was never gon’na be freedom here. You know damn well we was never gon’na find it ...” This is the voice of delusion, too. A voice of “never” that feeds hopelessness and hunger.

Never. Forever. A vicious cycle in Sinners. The hungry consume the hungry. Hungry for the illusion of permanence. Of no separation. Of no “until death do us part.” Parting is never, in Remmick’s hallucinatory world. No unbearable loss. Grief can’t be handled. So, Remmick would say, after hundreds of years trying to reunite with his lost ones: “Never will we part.” Never. Ever. “Sammmie. You’re the one I came for. I want to see my people again. Your gifts can bring them to me.”

Remmick waited too long. His methods failed him. And, Sammie almost goes with him to save the others. Fighting the lure of delusion is a huge fight. For Annie, Delta Slim, Grace, Pearline, and Sammie. They try to close the door. Smoke stabs Remmick in the heart and incinerates him and the other vampires with the fire of the Sun. This is reality finally showing up, I guess we could say.

Mary and Stack are the only vampires that escape death by the sun’s rays, living on together, forever. But really, this is only a delusion’s fantasy. Even true love can’t accomplish that feat...

Annie and Smoke don’t succumb to Remmick’s delusion or the KKK. They die of choice. And in their deaths, they’re reunited with the baby daughter they lost. They’ve done what they can. Completed their lives. Accepted their fates. Smoke and Annie aren’t left hungry. Either is Sammie. 

Sammie: Sinners Sole Survivor

Sammie the Preacher Boy was hungry for love, too. Watch him with Pearline (Jayme Lawson). He wants her. Tells her he’s not too young. Doesn’t care that she’s married. He’s determined to taste her, and he’s devastated when a vampire bites her. But Sammie doesn’t follow Pearline, even though he wants to. Because Pearline’s love, and Smoke’s, set him free. “Run. Run, Sammie. Run.”

Sammie runs. But not away from his dream. Well, he does run home to Daddy, for a moment, because is there safety anywhere? But when his Preacher father demands, “Drop the guitar, Sammie. Drop the guitar,” Sammie doesn’t. He isn’t led into the temptation of delusion. Nor is he led into some sort of protection by giving in to his Daddy’s demands. Sammie stays true to himself.

Yes, Sammie does.

Sammie’s biggest hunger is for his music. That’s healthy. That’s why Sammie is Sinnners’s sole survivor. Sammie is his music. That’s why he survives. He holds onto himself.  Music sets him free.