Blending Black horror and history: UCLA’s Tananarive Due on ‘Sinners’

By any measure, filmmaker Ryan Coogler's "Sinners" has been a sensation. Nominated for a record-breaking 16 Academy Awards - including best picture, best director, best actor and best screenplay - the movie follows twin brothers who return to their home in 1930s Clarksdale, Mississippi, after years working in Chicago's underworld. Hoping to leave violence behind, they purchase a rundown juke joint and set about building a space for music, community and Black joy. (Spoiler alert: What follows reveals details about the film's plot.)

But what begins as a tale about empowerment and second chances turns into a siege when the Ku Klux Klan and mysterious outsiders - revealed to be centuries-old vampires - target the club and its patrons. Blending blues culture, horror and social commentary, "Sinners" explores what it means to defend community in the face of racial violence, cultural exploitation, economic oppression and predatory power.

Tananarive Due, continuing lecturer in the UCLA Department of African American Studies, is one of the leading voices shaping contemporary understanding of Black horror and Afrofuturism. An award-winning novelist and cultural critic, she has used her fiction to explore the legacies of slavery, racial terror, spirituality and inherited memory - most notably in works like "The Reformatory" and "My Soul to Keep." She also co-produced and appeared in the landmark documentary "Horror Noire: A History of Black Horror," which traces how Black creators have navigated and transformed the genre.

Newsroom recently spoke with her about "Sinners" and how the film fuses the past and present, Black horror, and Afrofuturism with historical art.

Although it is set in the Jim Crow South of the 1930s, "Sinners" was made, released and struck a nerve in the 2020s. Why does it feel so relevant and potent today?

All historical fiction is in conversation with the present, whether intentionally or unintentionally. Ryan Coogler did not know what the state of U.S. politics would be while he was working on "Sinners," although the 2024 election certainly was looming. But just as Jordan Peele's "Get Out" was released during a bold rise in white supremacist activity during the first Trump administration, "Sinners" coincides perfectly with Washington's policies in 2025-26.

"Sinners" uses both horror and joy to remind us of the past and present simultaneously. It is revolutionary storytelling precisely because it is so firmly set in history while it also creates a bridge to the present.

Historical art isn't only powerful because it can be viewed metaphorically - for instance, "Oh, the segregation in 1930s Clarksdale can be compared to today's racial gulf!" - but because it literally reminds us of what has come before and how systems still in place today operated in a different form during an earlier era. At a time when too many in the United States seek to sugarcoat and even erase the past, art based in history becomes revolutionary. The past will not be forgotten. The past cannot be silenced. And any time is the right time to tell the truth about history.

Can you explain a little more about how the film is in dialogue with American cultural and social history?

"Sinners" is one of those great films that asks different thematic questions depending upon the viewer's experiences. Black viewers especially receive a nuanced and humane glimpse of the toil of their forebears, including how they often were tied to work as sharecroppers because they were paid in currency that did not build true wealth. At the same time, it's also a revenge fantasy-fulfilling defense against a violent attack by the Ku Klux Klan.

And that's just for starters. It's also an examination of the role of the church, the definition of community, hoodoo, racial identity, musical history and the inclusion of Asian Americans, the Indigenous and the Irish in Southern U.S. history.

You teach courses on Black horror film and Afrofuturism at UCLA. How would you categorize "Sinners"?

"Sinners" is both to me. I describe Afrofuturism as Black speculative and fantastic art that is often centered simultaneously on the past, present and future - so "Sinners" is Afrofuturism. And it is horror because it's scary.

Even if I didn't already consider the film to be Afrofuturism, one scene alone cements that status: at the juke joint, when the musician Sammie sings "I Lied to You," and the film opens up to reveal dancers and music from the past, present and future. No matter what their backgrounds, audience members report feeling lifted into the screen, making "Sinners" the most immersive filmgoing experience I can remember since I saw the original "Star Wars" in a theater with my father.

The film is also the perfect example of how the fantasy element in Black horror helps storytellers avoid the line between "entertainment" and severe triggers. While it doesn't shy away from depicting the horrors of the past, it does so in a way that is entertaining to a broad audience.

More on Tananarive Due's research:

In 'Get Out'-inspired class, students dig into portrayals of race and fear

Afrofuturism: From the past to the living present

How 'Black Panther' points to a more enlightened Hollywood future

Much of that fantasy element centers on vampires. What is the significance of vampirism in "Sinners"?

Without the vampires, the film would just be about the Ku Klux Klan attacking Black townspeople after opening night of a juke joint in an act of pure racial terrorism to destroy Black joy and progress. That's an important story, but it's not a story that lends itself to music and would drive viewers to want to watch it again and again.

Instead, Coogler wraps the true-life violence in fantasy violence, and he uses vampirism as a metaphor for cultural assimilation and an exploration of the possible pitfalls of allyship across racial lines. That fantasy element also enables Coogler to inject more humor and irony in the story. After all, the lead vampire, Remmick, is genuinely offended when he's asked, "Y'all Klan?" Even a vampire isn't as vile as that!

Coogler's films - from the ripped-from-the-headlines "Fruitvale Station" (2013) and the Afrofuturistic "Black Panther" (2018) to "Sinners" - all strike a chord emotionally. What is it about his storytelling instincts that make his films so resonant?

Ryan Coogler is a master of reinvention, but all his major films circle toward inclusivity, visibility and an eye toward redemption or justice. His stories of underdogs standing up to forces far greater than themselves resonate because they remind us that we are more powerful than we believe we are. This is why "Sinners" is such a great fit in horror, which already centers protagonists standing up to powerful forces.

And all viewers can appreciate the film's immersive music and cinematography - presented at a budget many times beyond what previous Black-led horror films have been allotted. The sheer lushness and scope is unique in Black horror, since Coogler's phenomenal box-office successes gave him access to a superhero-level budget to tell a story about one unforgettable night in a small Mississippi town.

Do you see "Sinners" inspiring other storytellers? What possibilities does it open up?

I don't believe we would have seen a "Sinners" without the path laid by filmmaker Jordan Peele's social Black horror, with "Get Out" (2017), "Us" (2019) and "Nope" (2022). These masters have now set a bar that will continue to inspire all filmmakers - but especially marginalized storytellers who want to engage with social and historical horror.

My hope is that "Sinners" will be a beacon of inspiration for other artists - particularly Black artists, marginalized artists and horror artists - as they feel validated in finding new ways to tell their stories. I would love to see a resurgence in thoughtful, marginalized horror the way we did in the years immediately after Peele's "Get Out."