Sinners Beat Sheet Analysis
Why We Chose to Do a Save a Cat! Beat Sheet Analysis of Sinners
Sinners is one of the highest-grossing American horror movies of all time. Written and directed by Ryan Coogler, and starring a double dose of Michael B. Jordan in the duo’s fifth cinematic collaboration since Fruitvale Station (2013), this genre film is a music-filled mashup of Delta blues lore, bloodlust-y undead, identical twin shenanigans, vampire hunters, hoodoo, and Afrofuturism.
The “filmed for IMAX” picture delivers thrills with its stunning visuals in shifting aspect ratios. And for those primarily concerned with story, the slow-burn two-monster script spawned the first-ever horror film to earn an “A” CinemaScore rating.
Written and Directed By: Ryan Coogler
Genre: Monster in the House
A hero is trapped in some location or situation (aka the “house”) and must survive a monster (human or otherwise). There must be a sin committed—often greed—prompting the creation of a supernatural being that comes like an avenging angel to kill the sinners. Monster in the House stories are commonly found in horror movies, urban thrillers, or comedies about people or things that just won’t go away.
The 3 elements of a MONSTER IN THE HOUSE story are:
1) A monster that is supernatural in its powers—even if its strength derives from insanity—and “evil” at its core.
2) A house, meaning an enclosed space that can include a family unit, an entire town, or even “the world.”
3) A sin. Someone is guilty of bringing the monster in the house… a transgression that can include ignorance.
Cinematic Cousins: From Dusk Till Dawn (1996), Night of the Living Dead (1968)
Save the Cat! Beat Sheet Analysis for Sinners
Prologue Narration
“There are legends of people born with the gift of making music so true it can pierce the veil between life and death, conjuring spirits from the past and the future. In ancient Ireland, they were called Filí. In Choctaw land, they called them Firekeepers. And in West Africa, they’re called Griots. This gift can bring healing to their communities, but it also attracts evil.”
Opening Image
A title card sets the action in Clarksdale, Mississippi on Sunday, October 16, 1932. Sammie “Preacher Boy” Moore (Miles Caton) looks shellshocked as he drives. He is scarred, bloody, and bedraggled, and stops the automobile in front of a church. As the choir inside sings “This Little Light of Mine,” he limps up to the building clutching the remains of a guitar.
When Sammie opens the sanctuary door, the worshippers react with shock, but the reverend, Jedidiah (Saul Williams), beckons him inside, telling the congregation, “My son has felt the call of sin.” He asks Sammie to swear to “leave those sinning ways where they lie,” ordering him to drop the guitar, “..in the name of God!”
Set-Up
We cut to the thesis world, just 24 hours prior. It is dawn and Sammie hums and sings as he picks cotton. A fellow sharecropper asks Sammie where he’ll be playing music that evening, wondering if she’ll have to get that information through the grapevine. He doesn’t tell; grapevine it is.
With his harvest quota already in the bag, Sammie heads home, wakes his siblings and prepares to seize the day.
In town, near an old timber mill, the Smokestack Twins—Elias “Smoke” Moore, sporting a blue scally cap, and the red fedora-wearing Elijah “Stack” Moore (both portrayed by Michael B. Jordan)—rendezvous with a good ol’ boy named Hogwood (David Maldonado).
After a quick inspection, they hand Hogwood a satchel of cash for the real estate, adding, “If we see you or any one of your Klan buddies cross our property line, we’re gonna kill them where they stand.” Hogwood insists, “Klan don’t exist no more.”
Theme Stated
Later that morning, Sammie joins his father at church to help prepare for the Sunday sermon. He easily recites the chosen bible verse from memory. (1 Corinthians, 10:13: “God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear.”)
Sammie tells his father he has to go. When the preacher asks what’s more important than being in the house of God, he says, “I’ve been working all week, Pop. I want to be free of all this for a day.” To his father’s dismay, Preacher Boy grabs a stunner of a guitar—supposedly once owned by a blues legend—from its stand near the pulpit. Jedidiah warns Sammie about playing sinful music for drunks and degenerates, saying: “You keep dancing with the devil, one day he’s gonna follow you home.”
Outside the church, Sammie greets his cousins, the twins, and hops into their car. He’s eager to hear about their time away from the Jim Crow south. The two fought in the German trenches of World War I, then spent time working for wise guys up north. They tell Sammie that Chicago is just Mississippi with tall buildings; they came back home because they prefer to deal with the devil they know.
They take Sammie to a hidden truck loaded with bootleg booze and tell him about their plan to open a juke joint. The twins can’t agree whether they can pull it together for that night or the next weekend. Either way, they don’t have much time to get everything up and running. They split up to divide and conquer. Smoke drives the truck into town and instructs Sammie to watch out for Stack. The twins hug and exchange “I love you’s” before going their separate ways.
Catalyst
Stack and Sammie chop it up in the car. Stack urges his cousin to play something, and Sammie sings the blues with an otherworldly voice. Preacher Boy’s talent is both undeniable and intoxicating. Stack realizes his cousin will be the star of the juke.
Debate
Can the twins transform a neglected mill into a hot spot by nightfall?
Smoke drives the truck loaded with beer and spirits pilfered from the mob into town. He pays his friend, Bo Chow (Yao), and Bo’s wife, Grace (Li Jun Li)—Asian grocers with twin shops on the Black and white sides of the main street—to provide food and a painted sign for the opening of Club Juke. Smoke ends the transaction by haggling with Grace for a small bouquet of flowers.
Stack and Sammie swing by the train station to promote the grand opening of the juke. Stack lures a weathered blues man, Delta Slim (Delroy Lindo), from his steady gig for the night to play at the club with the promise of $40 and all the beer he can drink.
Stack drives Preacher Boy and Delta Slim to the cotton fields to recruit Cornbread (Omar Miller) for help setting up and working the door at Club Juke.
Smoke places his bouquet on a child’s grave near the cabin of Annie (Wumni Mosaku), a Hoodoo woman and Smoke’s former lover. He sweet-talks her into cooking and serving food at the juke that night.
B Story
Love, longing, and lust are in the air. At the train station, Stack reconnects with Mary (Hailee Steinfeld), a married, white-passing woman who pines for him although he lovingly abandoned her. Preacher Boy takes a shine to Pearline (Jayme Lawson), a flirty, married woman he’s eager to seduce.
Though Smoke and Annie share the pain of losing a child and have been separated by the war and the twins’ time away in Chicago, their connection is undeniable. And the “mojo bag” Annie prepared for Smoke before he left town, which he religiously wears around his neck, has kept him safe and alive, through war and unspeakable horrors.
Break into Two
Twilight beckons as Remmick (Jack O’Connell), a pursued white man with smoking skin, stumbles toward a solitary house. He pleads with the overly suspicious, gun-toting residents to let him in; Choctaw hunters are trying to kill him. Remmick glances inside to see Klan hoods. He offers the couple gold in exchange for refuge.
The wife, Joan (Lola Kirke), answers the door with her gun drawn when the Choctaw eventually come calling. They warn her the person they’re pursuing is dangerous and not what he seems. Joan is unmoved, so they wish her well and retreat to safety. Once the Native Americans are gone, Joan realizes too late that her husband, Bert (Peter Dreimanis), has been turned into a vampire (and we see that Remmick is the culture-vulture vampire Monster of this MITH).
Fun and Games
The night is young and the antithesis world of Club Juke (the House in this MITH), where Black people can let loose, enjoy food, drink, good music, and dance themselves sweaty—away from cotton fields, quotas, chain gangs, “colored” waiting rooms, and racial terror—is heating up. The community, including Mary (to Stack’s chagrin) and Pearline, show up and show out.
Preacher Boy performs “I Lied to You” and pierces the veil (the Sin of this MITH). The party becomes a visceral trip across space and time in the Black musical multiverse, with African ancestors on percussion, and from the future, rappers, DJs spinning beats, a funky electric guitarist, twerkers, and more. Euphoria is all around.
Outside, Remmick, Joan, and Bert longingly witness the supernatural scene. They desperately want in and make their case for entry with a song. No dice. Remmick is offended they’re being rejected because of the color of their skin.
Midpoint
The juke joint is jumpin’, but all is not well. Stack admits to Mary that he and his brother will be out of business soon; patrons are paying with worthless plantation credits, so the venture is already underwater. And the clock is ticking until both the Irish and Italian mobs realize they were swindled by the Smokestack Twins.
Despite Preacher Boy’s talent, Smoke tells Sammie his first night performing at the juke will also be his last. Defying his cousin’s demand to go live with “proper” Black folks and make church music, Sammie tells Smoke he plans to leave the plantation and play the blues.
Mary takes Stack’s pistol and insists on going after Remmick, Joan, and Bert to find out if they have money.
Bad Guys Close In
The three vampires glamor Mary with a song then tempt her with ancient gold coins before savaging her.
Mary, looking good as new, saunters back to the club and gets Cornbread to invite her inside. She leads Stack to a private room, seduces him, and starts draining him before getting caught in the act. Smoke shoots Mary multiple times, but she gets up, says “We gonna kill every last one of you,” and runs back outside.
Smoke is inconsolable as Stack takes his last breath. He pleads with Annie to conjure some hoodoo to bring his brother back. There’s nothing she can do.
The party’s over. Club patrons are sent home. Grace tells Bo to get their car.
All Is Lost
Annie realizes that whiff of death in the air is the actual undead, including a belligerent, reanimated Smoke and Cornbread, who reappears at the door of the juke asking to be let inside, instead of simply walking in. Vampires! She knows they’re the worst kind of haint; their souls are stuck in the body, unable to rejoin the ancestors.
With a bizarre vampire Riverdance party raging outside, the small group holed up in Club Juke gathers ammunition for battle— garlic, wooden stakes, silver, holy water—with a plan to stay put until dawn. Annie makes Smoke promise to stake her in the heart if she gets turned because there’s someone waiting for her—and him—on the other side.
The plan is thwarted when Grace realizes Remmick turned Bo, gaining all of his knowledge and memories. Fearing for her daughter’s safety, she lights a Molotov cocktail and invites the vampires inside. It’s a bloodbath.
Dark Night of the Soul
Grace burns. Smoke has to make good on his promise to Annie. Delta Slim and Pearline sacrifice themselves to give Sammie a chance to escape. Smoke and Vampire Stack are locked in a fight that will surely end in another death.
Sammie escapes the juke joint, but finds himself all alone in a creek, surrounded by vampires. Remmick tells him he wants Sammie’s stories and songs. He needs Preacher Boy’s talent to stay connected to the music and culture of his Irish past. Club Juke was eventually going to become the scene of a racist slaughter anyway; he says he wants to create a new “clan” based on love.
Preacher Boy recites The Lord’s Prayer, thinking it could save him, but the vampires simply join in, and Remmick subjects Sammie to a twisted baptism.
Break into Three
Still clutching his precious guitar, Sammie fights back, impaling Remmick with the instrument’s metal plate. Smoke joins him in the water and they watch in horror as the dark night of the soul gives way to the dawn of the dead. The sun rises and the vampires combust.
Smoke sends Sammie back home in his car, uncovers a cache of military weapons, and prepares for the daytime monsters.
Finale
When Hogwood and the Klansmen roll up to what’s left of Club Juke, Smoke is ready for them. He rips off his mojo bag, ambushes and kills them all, but not before being mortally wounded by a bullet.
As he takes his last breaths, Smoke sees Annie and his infant child waiting for him on the other side.
Sammie drives up to the church and enters, and we’re back to the opening scene of Jedidiah urging him to drop the remains of his guitar.
Final Image
Sammie drives away, choosing the call of music.
Tag
Fifty years to the day of the opening and closing of Club Juke, Sammie is a renowned blues guitarist, enjoying a drink in a private bar after finishing his set at a Chicago venue called Pearline’s. Stack and Mary enter, looking very Yo! MTV Raps.
Stack knows Sammie’s time on Earth is ending and he offers his cousin eternal life. Sammie declines, admitting he often relives that horrible night, but “Before the sun went down, I think that was the best day of my life.”
Stack says it was the last time he saw his brother and the last time he saw the sun. For just a few hours, they were free.
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