Ryan Coogler mixes blues and hoodoo for 'Sinners,' his 'fresh' vampire horror tale

Ryan Coogler has worked on boxing dramas and superhero epics, but the new film "Sinners" let him fully immerse in horror for the first time.

Literally. Because he directs so close to the action, that meant getting right into the gore, too.

"Certain days, we got covered in blood," said Coogler, the director of "Creed" and the "Black Panther" movies, during a virtual "Sinners" Q&A with reporters on Monday. "Whenever I watch a horror film, I'm always gauging it on how many times do I get squeamish (or) don't want to look. I'm excited to see some of that."

"Sinners" (in theaters April 18) is a period piece mixing blues and history with the supernatural and stars Michael B. Jordan in dual roles opposite a whole bunch of sinister vampires. A new trailer unveiled Tuesday unleashes Coogler's monsters: Set in early 20th-century Mississippi, twin brothers Smoke and Stack (both played by Jordan) return to their hometown and attend a house party where a young musician plays a fancy guitar, and music and sex pervade the joint.

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But all is not well. “There are legends of people with the gift of making music so true, they can conjure spirits of the past and the future,” hoodoo woman Miss Annie (Wunmi Mosaku) warns in voiceover. “This gift can bring fame and fortune. But it also can pierce the veil between life and death.”

Enter a group of bloodsuckers who begin to make folks into fanged menaces. The trailer even teases a bad turn for Stack, trapped behind a door and asking Smoke to let him out. “That ain’t your brother,” Annie tells him.

Horror is "a genre that's for the people, but it's also a genre that comes up when people ask about great pieces of art as well," Coogler said. “It feels ancient. It feels like the first story, like it's always been there. The first story we probably told around a fire was a horror story, but it also always feels fresh somehow.”

And while there are vampires in “Sinners,” “it's really about a lot more than just that," Coogler added. "We're going to surprise people with it.”

In crafting the script. Coogler researched hoodoo culture and the histories of blues legends like Robert Johnson. “When you think about the vampire as it exists, it’s got an association and a counterpart in almost every culture,” the filmmaker said. “It is the supernatural creature that's most associated with seduction (and) with choice. It's something that's very present. And, you know, blues music is often called the devil's music. The film is in conversation with all of those things.”

Filmmakers like the Coen brothers, Robert Rodriguez and John Carpenter were inspirations for Coogler in making his first horror film. He pointed out two specific influences on “Sinners”: Stephen King’s novel “Salem’s Lot” and Coogler’s favorite “Twilight Zone” episode, “The Last Rites of Jeff Myrtlebank.”

The setting also made “Sinners” personal for Coogler, as his maternal grandfather and blues-loving uncle were from Mississippi.

“I got a chance to kind of dig into my own ancestral history with this film,” Coogler said. “It's very rare when a movie can kind of like almost fill in the dots of who you are."

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: 'Sinners' trailer: Ryan Coogler mixes blues, hoodoo in vampire movie