One of the most compelling aspects to Sinners is how it starts as a slow burn drama before switching genres to a horror at its Act 2 climax. In a world where content moves fast, Sinners becomes a rare feat in cinema where the filmmakers take their time telling the story and allowing the audience to fully immerse in the setting before making its abrupt change.

In Ryan Coogler’s latest film, Sinners, the writer/director behind such massive hits as Creed and Black Panther heads back to creating original material with his longtime collaborator Michael B. Jordan. This drama/horror film is unique as it uses vampiric creatures as a metaphor for Jim Crow-type attitudes and the KKK, even if both aren’t forced onto the audience – it’s often an underlying hint or talking point amongst the characters.

There are also a lot of throughlines, especially with music, and settings reflective of the 1930s south. The film takes place in the Mississippi Delta and follows a blues guitarist named Sammy (Miles Caton) and twin brothers Smoke and Stack (both played by Michael B. Jordan). The twins come to town eager to invest in their own juke joint with Sammy as a star singer. This plan naturally goes awry as evil forces descend upon them at night.

There are plenty of lessons that screenwriters can take away from a film like Sinners that center on character introductions, themes and throughlines. Here are 5 lessons that writers can use in their own stories.

1. Genre Switch

As mentioned previously, Sinners accomplishes a late-game genre switch from drama to horror. This is not an easy thing for a storyteller to accomplish and it’s rarely done, if only because it’s hard to market a movie that way. It was about 30 years ago that Robert Rodiguez did this very thing with his crime drama-turned-vampire horror film From Dusk Till Dawn. The Academy Award winning film Million Dollar Baby also flips genres going from sports film to drama midway through.

While many movies might seem to make genre switches, it’s often not as clean cut as the three films mentioned above. You might have a long period of time before a destructive scene in a disaster movie, but the film is premised on that disaster happening. Rocky might go quite a while between boxing matches, but it’s still a sports drama all the way through.

The genre switch feels like a sledgehammer knocking down the story the audience has invested time in. Filmmakers can see that it’s possible and even how it can be done successfully in a film like Sinners, but make sure there is a specific reason and intent for it, or else it will fall flat.

All that being said, in Sinners, there is a quick scene before the switch that hints at the genre change when a man seems to come out of nowhere asking for help at a farmer’s house – nothing is specific though. Other than that, there is little evidence that the movie is about to turn.

Michael B. Jordan in 'Sinners'

2. Telling Who Your Characters Are in a Single Scene

When twin brothers Smoke and Stack roll into town, they come in with charm, confidence and a reputation, good or bad is dependent on who they encounter. There is a single scene in particular when Smoke rides into the small Mississippi town.

Smoke steps out of his car and sees a young girl sitting nearby. He mentions who he and his brother are and asks if she’s heard of them. She nods, a bit frightened. Yet, the twins have been gone for seven years – that’s how deep their reputation runs in this town. He pays her to sit in his car and watch it. She obliges; even though she knows who they are, she is willing to help them.

From there, Smoke steps into a store where the owners are happy to see him. They’re even willing to help him get his juke joint up and running that night, including negotiating prices without fear of making him upset. And finally, Smoke ends up shooting two people (not fatally) who are robbing his car and no one does anything to stop him.

Even though just one-half of the twins are in this scene, it shows everything you need to know about who Smoke and Stack are. Screenwriters can see how Coogler introduces these characters, provides context based on people’s reactions to their presence and how they interact with their environment.

3. Slow Introduction to Supporting Characters

Sinners takes its time introducing characters with some major figures not showing up until nearly an hour into the movie. This slow introduction of characters is a different approach than most films in which most are met in the first act.

Coogler purposely spends his time showing how the supporting characters interact with the leads and allowing the audience to become familiar and invested in them. The scenes take their time as the new character’s past with the leads comes to light. Each scene is filled with subtext and viewpoints indicative of the time and place of the film and why the presence of the twins is important to improving their lives.

Any new introduction of a supporting character is a scene worth studying and screenwriters can see how the push and pull of the characters turns a dialogue into compelling storytelling.

4. Vampire Rules Apply

Vampires have been part of cinema for over 100 years. What’s interesting about how Sinners uses them is that there is already an expectation that the audience knows the rules. There isn’t a scene where the expert explains what vampires are and what’s needed to kill them. However, the characters need to know how to defend themselves. Annie (Wunmi Mosaku) is the expert on all things evil and uses actions or quick notes to tell the others how to kill vampires, often nothing more than, “Stake through the heart” or when she smashes a pickled garlic jar over one of the vampires heads in a defensive move.

For the most part though, audiences know about vampires and so Coogler doesn’t go in-depth about them. They’re there to drink blood and turn humans into vampires – nothing more, other than the desire of what the vampires actually want.

While it’s a drama for a good amount of the movie, screenwriters can see how familiar stories and tropes can become original and unique: what if there were vampires in 1930s racist Mississippi?

Miles Caton in 'Sinners'

5. Music as a Throughline

Music plays a critical role in the telling of Sinners. The first scene of the film shows Sammy entering a church with the neck of a busted guitar in his hand. The movie then launches into the previous day and how Sammy got to where he was bleeding, bruised and holding a broken guitar.

Sammy sings the blues masterfully and impresses whoever hears him. Whether it’s the leader of the church saying the music will bring evil, Sammy’s playing to the crowd at the juke joint and summoning the past, present and future of any number of cultures or other characters and their music, screenwriters can see how music connects all the characters of the film and helps drive the stories.

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Sinners is a captivating film with storytelling methods that can help any screenwriter enhance their narrative and bring more meaning to their own story. While this blog has five takeaways, filmmakers can find many more lessons in Sinners they can use in their own writing.