DZ-121: Escalating Antagonism in SINNERS — Transcript

I am also attracted to everyone in Sinners.

I mean, yes. It is a film that glistens.

Hi, I'm Stu Willis.

And I'm Chaz Fisher.

And welcome to Draw Zero, a podcast where two emerging filmmakers and one established filmmaker try to work out what makes great screenplays work.

And today we are looking at how to escalate antagonism within the story.

Not between us.

And we are looking at this the lens that we are looking at escalating antagonism is through a paradigm that stew discovered in the ttrpg horror mothership and that paradigm is called tombs transgression omens manifestation vanishment and slumber and i'm really excited about this topic, A, because it was great playing Mothership with you, Stu, even though we've yet to align our diaries to play again. But I think this is one of those few episodes where we're actually going to explore a generative tool as opposed to a craft tool that can only really be applied in rewriting. So, what do I mean by generative? I think by us learning about this paradigm, It will help us in that development stage of stories. And we're breaking up this session, these episodes, this exploration of tombs into two parts. This part one, us and our esteemed mystery guest who will be introduced shortly, we're going to explore the tomb cycle and then apply it to the amazing story. 2025 film Sinners, written and directed by Ryan Coogler. And initially we thought about doing a horror, but then we thought we would expand to see whether this paradigm can be generative in other genres. And so we polled our amazing Patreons who bring you more Draft Zero more often, and our Patreons decided that we should do a thriller and a comedy. So in part episode 122, the next episode not this episode we will be looking at the also amazingly awesome rebel ridge written and directed by jeremy saulnier and the now i think 25 years later we can call it a classic yeah meet the parents where story credit by greg gliena and mary ruth and screenplay by jim hertsfield and john hamburg and this modern comedy classic was picked by a guest stew, Please introduce our wonderful listeners to Kim.

Well, you just kind of did it for me. Our special guest, Kim Ho. They're a multi-award winning and multi-nominated playwright and screenwriter. They're particularly well known for the newsreader and NCIS Sydney. So welcome to the show, Kim.

Thanks so much for having me.

Kim and I are often in the same social circles. And whenever we meet, we often talk about genre, even though the newsreader and NCIS aren't really horror. And the reason this kind of came up as a guest is, I'll give a little bit of context because I think it is useful. We threw out an acronym, TTRPG, tabletop role-playing game, think Dungeons and Dragons, right? And I think the reason it works as generative storytelling, and I'm sure we'll talk more about this, is that's what role-playing games are. They're a toolkit for people to get together and come up with collaborative storytelling. I've been playing TTT RPGs for a long time. And then I recently discovered Mothership. And you and I were talking about, I don't know, you were running some Twilight?

Yeah. I was trying to run a Twilight TTRPG using the Dungeons & Dragons system, which was not easy.

And then that got us talking about horror. And I was like, oh, you've got to read this Mothership thing because it's got this idea called Tombs, which is transgression, omens, manifestation, banishment, and slumber. And the reason I think TTT RPGs are interesting, and look, a lot of screenwriters do play them, is that they do have to kind of create systems to generate story on the fly. Right. And what is interesting is about what screenwriters do, even though we've got a finished product, when we're in the kind of development stages of a story, we are looking to systems to help us, right? Whether it's Save the Cat or... You know, the hero's journey to use the most well-known models, but even the five, you know, the six sequence for each of the act, whatever structural tools that we're talking about, we're looking at systems to help us generate ideas. And Toons felt to me like a way of mapping onto horror. And it connected to an idea that you were like, oh, this reminds me of, I can't even remember, it was like Observe.

Oh, yeah. Yeah. I was livid when you told me about this, because I have spent two years working on a horror show, and we basically came up with this progression. It was like beat for beat, and then I was like, yeah, we kind of tried to reinvent the wheel, and if we'd had this, it would have been a lot quicker.

Well, I mean, what's kind of interesting is, because I asked the creator of Mothership, Sean McCoy, where he found it, and he's like, I made it. Uh but he was like but you know the tttrpg has been in development for nearly 10 years so it doesn't surprise me that he's kind of evolved it so that's the kind of the tool and i think what struck me is we on the show before has talked about transgression we've alluded to it mike jones who's now like head of development at bbc australia had written a blog post about, transgression in horror and its relationship to morality stories. And that always stuck with me, but it doesn't go anywhere. It's like, here's the transgression, but it doesn't give you tools for thinking about the framework later. And what is cool about this is not only is it a catchphrase, it kind of is broken into five rough turning points.

I also like it because I think we often, I don't know if anyone else thinks like this, but when you use those structures that are out there, they tend to be around plot and they tend to think primarily from the protagonist's point of view. How is the protagonist going to go through a series of escalating decisions? And using this system, we can actually look at the forces of antagonism in a story. And what I do like about each of these stories, I think it's probably any story, but there are multiple sources of antagonism as well, and they all do actually... Subject to this analysis, tend to fit these points of escalation somewhat evenly. But I do have a question for both of you guys. Does the mothership, you guys have done the actual reading into the mothership, what would you call it, the warden book or the operation manual? And is there more detail that I need beyond the words transgression, omens, manifestation, banishment and slumber or are they really self-evident.

Well i would say yes like i was thinking a lot about the word transgression uh in prepping for this and i think that there's a lot of ways to use it there isn't like the capital t transgression as it's used in mothership but i still think it's like very kind of thematically linked so did you want to go through yeah.

I'll I'll read the headlines from the Warden's operation manual.

Hey, I got it right.

You did. So transgression, someone knowingly or unknowingly awakens the horror from its slumber, right? The lie may be an actual boundary, like stepping foot on an unknown planet or boarding a derelict ship, or it may be a moral boundary, like leaving a crew member behind or turning your back on an innocent suffering. They can be active or passive and transgressions aren't just actions your players take in the present either. They can be something done in the past, right? Or, and what it's not really unpacking here, it's transgressions can be done by other people, right? But once you, the transgression is the act that awakens the slumber and that leads into the omen.

Okay, so this is important for me. So it doesn't have to be, I mean, this is an RPG, so everyone's supposed to be, who's playing is their own protagonist as it were, but we're talking more, I guess, all these three examples. We have a very classic Western storyteller, single protagonist stories. So does the transgression, I know I was finding myself finding lots of transgressions early on in the, in the films against the sources of antagonism, but they might not have always been committed by the same character. But I think that's interesting, Stu. What I'm latching onto there is whatever the transgression is, it doesn't necessarily have to be by the protagonist, but it has to awaken the forces of antagonism.

Like a transgression that the protagonists have no part of could be like Alien Romulus where they've got the alien and they're starting to experiment on this station. Or it could be like a planet where they're mining too deep and shit's gone down and they've awakened something in the planet core or whatever. And then the protagonists are just the unlucky bastards who stumble upon what's already in motion. Yeah. Or it could be, Like your protagonists decide to cross the threshold and enter the creepy town where no one's been seen in many years or whatever.

Which I think, even in the case of Alien Romulus, the horror happened and then it's kind of gone to sleep again. And then they reawaken it because they actually call it, Sean McCoy actually calls it the tombs cycle in his book. And the cyclical nature is a key part of horror. And what's interesting is Rebel Ridge, when we get to it, I don't think it necessarily has the cyclical nature completely baked into the idea, though you can kind of extrapolate and well go, you know, what is it called? Civil forfeiture is something that's not unique to this town, but it doesn't draw that conclusion for you. But Meet the Parents, in setting up a sequel, clearly establishes the cycle, as does Sinners, which we'll talk about. So, what I think is interesting is this idea of a line, right? And as you say, I think there's multiple lines. And we'll unpack this idea more, but I thought what was interesting about Rebel Ridge is that the transgression actually kind of goes both ways. For an action movie, because what we're talking about is Awaking the Horror. For the characters in a movie like Rebel Ridge, which is an action movie, the monster is kind of the lead character as well. It's like the Rambo thing. It's like, uh-oh, you've just awoken the motherfucker who's going to kick your ass, the person with the special set of skills, and they transgress against him as much as he transgresses against them. So I think that's what's kind of interesting about this idea.

While you're on Cycles, I'm just flagging now. There were lots of beats that I flagged throughout all three of these films where I'm like, this feels like an omen. And it might have been in what I'd previously decided, oh, we're now in the manifestation pit of the cycle. But this is clearly an omen rather or felt just linguistically to me. And it made me think, and I wonder if we might, when we get into the examples, pick this apart, whether these cycles of escalating antagonism could actually be based on a, like work in a sequence as well. You know, like, could the version of antagonism, you know, we often talk about our sequences being driven by either a central dramatic question or a character question, and could the force of antagonism be seen to be cycling through those as well?

You transgress that waken, and that ultimately wakens an omen, and then that escalates and wakes a bigger omen, like the kind of a sequence of... I mean, that is the, um, you know, this, the series of goons that you're going to beat before you, you beat the final, you know, mini boss and the final boss.

I mean, part of the reason I raised that and I'm planning that flag now is while I was doing this, I'm like, oh yeah, this fits very well. I was hoping to find in this, like, is there going to be a tool in here that will help me next time I'm writing a film or a TV show, uh, something that will help me think of a way of escalating antagonism in a way that I hadn't thought before. And I was particularly looking for ways to generate ideas for that middle part of a story. You know, like the setups usually... Pretty easy to get down pat and you know if you if you know your ending it's pretty easy to nail but where i often fall adrift and i'm in need of these like juicy examples of antagonism rising up that are pushing our different characters through their stories yeah i wanted more discrete beats rather than these larger movements i.

Also think that like i completely agree that there's like these kind of mini cycles within the larger movements that it can be like fractal to some extent i also think that when we talk about these acts or stages that there isn't always a neat kind of delineation between them that it's not like this gear change and now we're out of the omen phase and we're into.

The manifestation phase that you can.

Uh have like i think meet the parents was actually surprisingly multi-layered with all these like little subplots going on and.

And when.

You might be in the full manifestation phase of like robert de niro the antagonist he's there there are still little omens for stuff that they're going to you know they're setting stuff up for to pay them off later down the.

Track yeah and i mean we've chosen at least two films sinners and meet the parents where the main antagonist does not i think manifest until like halfway through the film like the vampire doesn't even show up let alone at the duke joint doesn't even appear on screen until halfway through sinners and in meet the parents the whole i'd forgotten just how long it was into the story before ben stiller's character greg learns that robert de niro's character jack is a former slash current cia operative like it is a long way into the movie the the first third of that movie is sustained just through pure.

Cringe and then you realize oh no no no it's not just cringe it's a nightmare yeah to.

Come i'm going to come back and finish reading out these.

Headings.

We're still.

We're still talking about transgression and its transition into omens so in in the one it's uh the horrid omens the horrid hell heralds its arrival through signs and signals. Right. And it gives some examples of that, whether they're nightmares, prophetic visions, loose trail of victims, rumors, whispers, right? It's an early warning system to the players that something is not right and gives them a chance to get ahead. Right. And in this, because I'm not going to go too much into the TTRPG theory. But Mothership is what's called OSR. It's old school Renaissance game. there's a lot of tables so you can literally just roll if you want of what these omens are right so it doesn't in this system it doesn't necessarily have to be cohesive right but the written adventures definitely have stuff that is escalating and ultimately the omens and this is what's interesting once uh finally omens act as clues for mysteries to be solved what are they pointing to what do they foretell once the omens have been solved or time has run out the horror appears and the players enter the next act manifestation right and that's where the horror reveals its true form to the players and i think in the context of the story and and i think this applies to all three it's not just the true form it's the extent of its power right so you could see the chestburster emerging in alien as the manifestation but it's not actually complete that's actually an omen the fully grown xenomorph right is to me the manifestation it's like Like you've got, you know, it is a merge fully grown and we now fully understand the extent of its power. Right? And I think that's what the manifestation is. The Omen scene I'm going to bring up, because there's another idea from Mothership, which I bombed on Chaz just before this call, but that's only because he doesn't read his emails. Which is mothership has this rule for creating survival horror which is the kind of game it is is that it calls it you know survive solve save players can only pick anyone but i'm going to break down this more because i think in these three films which are not games so this is a useful tool from a storytelling game but we're applying them to stories which is what says when you are setting up a adventure for your players to go in you need to create something you want them to have something to survive, right? You need them to have a dilemma or a series of obstacles where players must be able to survive it, that it's putting them under a physical threat. But you also need to then add them, give them something to solve, a series of puzzles or mysteries that kind of test their wits. And then lastly, you need to give them something to someone to save, i.e. that's not them. That is an external manifestation of it. What is interesting is that survive. Solve, save, that we're talking about stakes, right? We're talking about stakes that start with very basic internal, right? We're starting with an intellectual kind of mystery, and then we're externalizing it. All three films that we are looking at do those three things. And I think it's actually, that is kind of related to the omens. The omens are going to establish what you're going to be surviving from, and it manifests us and shows us the way it's threatened. Often the omens, that second act thing, is about actually solving it, all leading into banishment. Not that we're doing a ghost movie but a lot of ghost movies are about learning to understand what hunger or desire the ghost has and how you satisfy it that's the something to solve and then the someone to save is the kind of the personal stakes that connect it that is not just like i've got to get out of here because that's the instinctive reaction and i think all three films have that survive solve and save and i think that kind of is what bridges you chas from omens through to banishment because you need all three things to to lead you you need to set up those things and work your characters through it to get to the attempt to banish uh which spoiler alert i think what's great about meet the parents is he fails to banish yeah he gets banished he's the one who gets banished because he fails to banish ah.

Okay because this was i've literally got a question next to banishment like who is banished like and and i guess again this is the beauty of the system is that this system is designed to apply to, essentially ensemble storytelling and facilitate ensemble storytelling. It doesn't necessarily have to be either the protagonist who gets banished or tries to banish, but what is the banishment that in Mothership it's talking about achieving?

Yeah, it's talking about attempting to destroy the horror. The most obvious thing is killing the horror, but often the horror is not that. It's about appeasing the horror or freeing the horror. You know, it is the solution to the problem of the horror.

So, The Banishment is actually talking about the banishment of the sources of antagonism.

Yeah, and the players attempting to do that, right? Or in this case, the characters. So, it's once they've kind of solved the mystery, then they understand how to banish them, you know? And that is true in particularly something like Rebel Ridge, because it's kind of interesting how strong that mystery plot is when we get there. But there is also, when we think about the, uh, Robert De Niro's character, meet the parents, the solve is how do you actually win this guy over? Right. Why do I, how do I get him to not keep on picking on me? You know, sinners in some ways is a little bit more trad in the, how do we actually kill the monster? And then the last part of the tomb cycle is slumber where the horror relents. Right. And if they are successful in Banishment, it nearly goes dormant, waiting for the transgression to be set off again. But if they fail, because Mothership is pretty brutal, the horror completes its plan and moves on to the next phase in its evolution. And what's cool about some of the modules, I mean, I'm just going to, this is me just selling Mothership, but there's people that do evolutionary cycles to go. This is kind of where it escalates.

Oh, hell.

It's fun. Right. But the idea is that part of it is that horror comes to the fact that horror is really defeated permanently. Right. You just keep it at bay. And, you know, mothership is heavily inspired by aliens. So it's, it's balancing the, you know, which species is worse, you know, kind of corporate dystopia, you know, capitalism run a muck versus kind of like visceral horror is what the, you know, the intentions of humans. And so that stuff can be made dormant. And, you know, I think part of the success of the Alien franchise is the fact that they have, that it's got those two things. You know, you can never run out of Weyland-Yutani or the company trying to do evil shit, you know, more than the Xenomorph.

Yeah.

What I'm interested in in these three films is that they all have sources of antagonism that are quite classical and external and dramatizable. And then they all have... More either systems of oppression or or or in greg's case his own self-esteem is like the biggest antagonist of the the whole film that he has to vanquish is to see himself worthy.

When i mentioned i was interested in transgression uh more generally or on a kind of symbolic or thematic level it's like i think there are kind of these films work on socio-political and thematic levels where like you can kind of chart the turn cycle through the themes and through the like what are the uh kind of social or political uh lines that have been crossed um and aesthetic as well just one thing with slumber is um one of my favorite parts of the cycle part of terms is the lingering effects on the characters that even if they managed to survive and maybe they've also solved some part of the mystery they're left you know devastated with these scars uh or left permanently altered it's um you know the the final girl uh laughing on the truck at the end of texas chainsaw massacre it's like she survived but at what cost and.

It's an interesting it's it does put an emphasis on you know it's it's the balance between the horror and the character and as you say there's a social political context which dives into the kind of morality aspect of transgression right if we're saying this.

Thing is kind.

Of having emerged and look when we're not here to be historical or our scholarship is as poor much.

Like uh much.

Like joseph campbell alpha scholarship is poor you know but the the transgression if it's connected to like fairy tales and morality you know morality plays there is a lesson here right and a lot of early i'm not saying early horror but coming back to that because horror has existed for a long time but something like you know the slasher fix you mentioned texas chainsaw massacre they're kind of aggressive in many ways in terms of the politics, the sins these characters commit that leads to their deaths are actually kind of often stuff to do with sexual morality, et cetera, et cetera, right? And so the line that then those films kind of reinforce- the kind of divine punishment for you, for you crossing a line, for you eating the metaphorical apple, right?

Well, cause I think in what I appreciate about the clarification you guys have made in this early sequence is that the word transgression, it's the transgression against the source of antagonism that awakens them. Whatever the quote unquote inciting incident might be, or the call to action or opportunity that might be presented in a classical single character, single protagonist story, that doesn't mean they are necessarily being transgressed against or being transgressive. They have transgressed against the system of antagonism that you have decided is in your story. And that might be reaching for an opportunity, right? I mean, one of my favorite films that we have done on the podcast before is Stranger Than Fiction. His transgression is that he exists, right? And that he just starts hearing the voice of his creator. He hasn't actively done anything other than he's lived his life and he's just reached the point that he can hear the narration and that has awakened. And it's not necessarily that he himself has to have transgressed.

Yeah to me it feels like all three of the films we've picked have a kind of similar like just the guy trying to do a thing like it just like to to be the audacity to be black in america and dare to be free in sinners or the audacity to carry money, whilst black in like in the deep south yeah and then yeah with meet the parents like the audacity to be a man and also a male nurse and also your name is gay lord fucker.

And and also at the time you know and we in our pre-chat we talked about it like to be a jewish man marrying.

A christian.

Woman right at that time was crossing a boundary that maybe some people are more sympathetic to But look, my parents, who do listen to this podcast, my mum was raised Protestant, my dad Catholic, they had to get permission from the Pope to get married. Right? Like, that is now like, hmm? And I'm like, well, let's pretend it's only 10 years ago because it makes me sound young. No, no, 50 years ago. Actually, it's more than 50. But, you know, these things are in recent memory, these kinds of boundaries, right? Yeah. And the thing is, what is interesting then in modern horror is saying something could be a transgression without modern horror actually saying it's a transgression to the line at the time, but it's not something that the film is endorsing. The punishment meted out to the protagonist is not something that the film is saying is deserving. It's not that catharsis of violence being rendered onto someone who's crossed a line. In the way that I think maybe something like, you know, Friday the 14th, 1 and 2, that kind of era of slasher films was definitely from, like, this kind of visceral joy of seeing violence enacted on young, damn those young people, you know.

Damn you being young and horny. i'd love to dig into this a little bit more because i i think like the the transgression in tombs is the transgression against the horror you know daring to blah blah blah awaken it but i i think it's it's worthwhile like the small t transgression that the horror like does. To kind of meaning and the way we see the world i was watching this um video essay mariana colin is an amazing video essayist she runs um a channel called the morbid zoo um and she's recently done one on the philosophy of uh the final destination franchise um but she talks about like horror troubles boundaries and questions assumptions but there's almost always some form of meaning to fall back on a story is horrific uh because some kind of inherent value is being threatened um so in the thing the the thing that's being threatened is a sovereign personal identity and our ability to recognize it in others in the shining it's the expectation of mutual care and affection in the nuclear family and in like halloween and stuff it's the safety of domestic spaces and like the kind of white bread suburban neighborhood and you're like you're typically not supposed to be on the monster's side it's effective because it's like rupturing at the kind of like something that we see as like the reliable natural order of things like things should be this way and the the. Horror disrupts that and and i i think like what i really love about the tombs cycle is is this interplay between like trend. Like transgressions on both sides um we can kind of disrupt it ourselves by accident by overminding a planet or uh like straying into the forest that we know we shouldn't stray into yeah we like both things can be violated like as in the rules can be violated from both sides.

So that's because I think Sinners is such a perfect example of that because nothing the main characters do awakens the vampire. That is not the transgression, right? Either from the, you know, from the vampire's perspective or otherwise. The vampire literally just appears and we've got no idea where he comes from or anything like that. So what vampire am I talking about?

But he is attracted to the transgression.

Yes absolutely i.

Am also attracted to everyone in sentence.

I mean yes it is a film that glistens.

With all the things that i've seen, i ain't ever seen no demons, no ghosts, No magic. Till now. Hey, get back inside. Let me in, man. There's some weird shit going on out here.

So, Sinners, written and directed by Ryan Coogler, released 2025, is an amazing story, set in, I think it's in Mississippi, they refer to the Delta, and...

Clarksdale, Mississippi.

Clarksdale, Mississippi, thank you, 19...

32.

So it is, I would say the lead is Preacher Boy, Sammy Moore, who is just a singer who wants to make music, particularly blues music. He is cousins with the famous Smokestack twins, Elijah and Elias Moore, Smoke and Stack, both played by Michael B. Jordan. I've still got to watch some behind the scenes as to how they did some of those scenes with him. And Smoke and Stack are both World War I veterans, but also have left to go to Chicago and work for Al Capone and have come back with money and booze during Prohibition era to set up what for them they often describe as Freedom, which is their own juke joint where they want Blues to play.

A mighty fine day to be free ain't it our own juke joint for us and by us just like we always wanted.

And then to really shorten the summary halfway through the movie when they are at the peak of success and and i would say the manifestation is also there's there's counter forces of manifestation like this film takes you into the joy of the freedom that that music brings those people and that juke joint brings those people uh in a in a sublime uh sequence set around a blues song that travels forward and back through time it's.

Magic what we do it's sacred a beam. 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. Somebody take me off tonight.

But then a vampire shows up and starts converting. The rules of vampirism in this film are in some ways quite classical. They have to be invited in. They don't like wooden steaks or garlic. And they have a measure of control over there. The people they convert, but not total. And he begins systematically trying to turn them all into vampires. But as Stu pointed out before, particularly once Preacher Boy, once Sammy, heard Sammy's voice. So this is a music loving vampire.

Sammy, you're the one I came for. I sensed you. I want to see my people again. I'm trapped here, but your gifts can bring them to me. Y'all give them to me now. Just give me a little Sammy. We'll let y'all live.

So Sammy is basically Picard and the vampires of the Borg trying to illustrate Picard for his knowledge of stuff. This reference is lost on both of you. Kim, please, please.

I did not watch the show, but I did watch the movie.

Oh, after. Because that was the show is Picard is similar. Anyway, because it's dealing with assimilation. What I think is interesting, and I think we should go through the T-O-M-B-S, I'm just jumping to the M part, the manifestation thing, which is what I'm kind of now unpicking. Right, is that I don't think the vampire rocking up at the jute joint in the midpoint is the manifestation, right? It's still an omen. We just don't, because we need somewhere to go. And it's kind of when they all, once we've realized that they assimilate these people and they're still alive, like alive, as in they're still kind of functional bodies. And then they can kind of, I think that is kind of the full manifestation of the horror, right? And part of the reason i like tombs as an idea and certainly chas and i have experienced this kim and i know if you have with your development is people with horror people wanting to bring the horror forward yeah they wanted like the first act turning point and you're like but look at all these great horror films the monster doesn't appear until halfway or later the first act in sinners is almost like 45 minutes before we even know that there's a vampire right and.

And And for the characters to actually know that they're dealing with vampires, as he says to you, is well beyond that.

Oh, yeah. Okay. So, I've checked it. It's 42 minutes when he turns up into the film, right? What's interesting is there's a prologue talking about music attracting spirits. So, they're actually setting up what the line is.

Yeah. That, to me, is like the transgression that, like, to dare to create music so transcendental that it breaks time.

Yeah.

And also, like, that transgression will draw evil. And it kind of, like, lays it out almost like a prophecy. That, to me, is, like, classic tombs.

Yeah. All right. Well, let's get into the beats. So... Very early on, Sammy, and it's actually set up by a Stuart special, to steal the script notes phrase, is the film opens with Sammy wandering into the church, being sort of brutalized by his ordeal, and then cuts to a day earlier, where his father has taken his guitar, forcing Sammy to come and ask for permission, essentially. His father is trying to tell him not to go and be with these sinners and sammy chooses to go and play music and this is where i think it's important to talk like to say sammy is not doing anything wrong the film is not judging him for this in fact the film ultimately in the final scenes rewards sammy for his love of music and choosing music over uh you know i guess more conservative, christian values uh and there was a point in the middle of the film that i'd kind of forgotten which is Stack literally pulls the gun on Sammy and says, you will never play blues music again. Go and play choir music because that is your ticket to freedom. So there are these, the system of transgression for Sammy is around the forces of antagonism and the monsters that get awakened is around his choice to play music or not and the type of music that he loves.

I mean, the transgression seems to be two confluences, right? Which is Sammy going and playing music when his father has specifically said you shouldn't play music to sinners, right? That attracts all sorts.

Dancing with the devil, yeah.

Well, you got to be that's more important than being in the house of God. I've been working all week, Pop. I want to be free all this for a day to play music. For drunkards, philanderers who shirk their responsibilities to their family so they can sweat all over each other. I'll be back in town for service in the morning. Son? You keep dancing with the devil. One day he's going to follow you home. Hey, little cousin, come on up.

And then it's Smoke and Stack setting up their own juke joint, right? And having the audacity to want to own property. And then they're buying it off a white man. And those two things together create the circumstances that attract the vampire. So I don't think vampire is awakened literally, but I do think that act, by attracting to him, it's effectively the same thing. The vampire has his attention turned to these characters, and I would call that a transgression. And then morality, the moral line that they're crossing is the, and I love your word audacity, Kim, it's the audacity to do these things. Yeah.

And I think in Smoke and Stack's case, the audacity to be upwardly mobile, like to kind of own property and to like, how dare they think they could run a business, you know, in a clan occupied area.

Well, we actually meet Smoke and Stack before they go to pick up Sammy, and their first action is to buy the property. Like, the very first action they do is their transgression, and it is revealed to them later that they have purchased this property from the Grand Dragon of the local sect of the Ku Klux Klan, who is intending to come and murder them all the next morning.

I think there's a strong case to be made that there's two horrors in Sinus.

Oh, yes, absolutely.

That there's the supernatural, well, yeah, sorry, that implies, the strong case to be made implies that you could view the Ku Klux Klan as not a horror. There are absolutely two horrors in Sinners, but like they run in tandem and like the kind of almost. Two final climaxes or confrontations um uh is the film managing those those dual antagonists.

I'm sure we'll get to where this moment sits within the film but it's the most powerful one to me is where remick which is the name of the irish vampire wants like this is post-manifestation because everyone's on board he's actually just trying to talk the remaining survivors in the joint into letting them just let me turn you into vampires right he's trying reason not violence or manipulation or anything like that and he has a line in there and i'm going to paraphrase it but we will accept it from the film but basically that they will be freer as his kind of sub-minion vampires than they ever will have been as being african-american in the american south.

You ain't safe here no matter how many guns or how much money they gonna take it from you when they won't you built something here tonight and it was beautiful that it was built on a lie, hogwood he's the grand dragon of the ku klux klan that's his motherfucking nephew, they was always gonna kill you i just happened to show up at the right place at the right time You tell him the truth, Smoke. I can see his memories. Smoke, I need your brother. This wasn't no juke joint, no club. This here is a Florida house. It's a goddamn killing floor. But what Uncle Hogwood don't know is we're going to start ourselves a new clan based on love. Now that we got numbers, we'll probably go to that old bigot and rectify him, too. Why can't y'all just go? Because we're not leaving without y'all. We're family. Ain't that right? I know it sounds crazy, but after we kill y'all, we're going to have heaven right here on earth. Hmm.

And that's where the two, like they're both, both sources of antagonism, both forces are controlling forces that the characters are all rebelling against, but they also are against each other. Like Remick even says, oh, well, we'll rectify the Grand Dragon character. Like we'll, we'll go and convert him to vampirism because vampirism is more equal and less bigoted than.

The hive mind aspect of the vampire law in this film is so fascinating because like it makes it it makes that offer somewhat true like it's twisted and perverted but it's like you can kind of uh equalize everyone by turning them into vampires it's just also kind of freezing them in time and forcing them to consume rather than participate in art um yeah i.

Think the the dual antagonist thing is interesting because then what we can see is the what i was talking about as the confluence is the the transgression from sammy it's against the vampires right and the transgression gets the clan is buying land and i think the to mbs the doom cycle works equally well for those antagonists in parallel, at different paces, right? The omens of, you've actually bought this land from the clan, are more spread out, right? And the manifestation and the banishment are a little bit closer together. When the clan show their power, they're going to be quickly slaughtered. But it does show you that it can kind of apply to separate subplots.

So all right we know that the transgressions are basically the first scenes for each of the those three characters that we're talking about the the way that we've described them the certainly the forces those are the acts that awaken the the different forces the vampirism and the systemic racism when for you guys is the manifestation because i agree with you stew in that i was like oh, the manifestation is when the vampire appears. But then I'm like, I have three notes here. It's like, wait, is the manifestation when Mary... Turns into a vampire, or is the manifestation when Stack turns into a vampire, or is the manifestation when Cornbread tries to bite smoke? And I think you can mount an argument that any of those is the shift from omens to manifestation.

Yeah, I mean, you could see manifestation as its own sequence, right, of just escalating manifestations. What I talked about, you know, going from the chestburster to the fully grown xenomorph applies here that you've got renick by himself right and then that fully grows into renick with an army right and the fact that the others have come back as well on his side is the evolution of that so if they are which is what um i call them turning points at the beginning of the episode but the wom calls them as acts then if manifestation is a sequence then i think that actually is actually kind of even more useful because it's like the the sequence of manifestational is is kind of like a transformation so it's the transformation from renic tonic to towing up to his full-grown power right and what coming back to how does this help me write it's like have somewhere to go with my antagonist once he turns up you want to see that full extent of that power grow what.

Might be helpful here is um the stages of horror that we were using um for the horror show that i mentioned earlier that i was working on was from a scholar called north carol the stages are onset discovery confirmation and confrontation and it's a more protagonist focused stage but they map perfectly onto tombs the idea is that like onset is the the horror i guess, bursting onto the scene but your protagonists haven't seen it yet so in jaws it's the couple getting chomped at the beginning of the film discovery is when your protagonists discover something's amiss something's wrong confirmation in jaws is when they have to convince the mayor that there's a big ass shark on the beach in in the water and to close the beach it's like maybe the weakest of those four but there is like a kind of confirmation stage that occurs in sinners during that manifestation sequence that Sue's talking about. And it involves Annie being like, oh, I figured it out. It's not this kind of thing. It's vampires. And this is how we fight it.

What's in the jar? Pickle garlic. These ain't hate. They're vampires. Now we need garlic. Wood. Silver and holy water. She might not kill him, but it'll slow him down. How could it move and sound like shtack if it ain't shtack? I only ever heard stories. I ain't never come across them myself. What stories you heard? How Haines work. They switch places with the soul of a man. But vampires is different. Maybe the worst kind. The soul gets stuck in the body, can't rejoin the ancestors, cursed to live here with all this hate. Can't even feel the warmth of a sunrise. Okay, then. Can we bring them back? Maybe if I kill the ones that made them this way. Smoke. They have a connection, but they live on, even if the one that made them is killed. The best thing we can do for him is free his spirit from this curse. They got to be killed one by one. How the hell do we do that? Sunlight, a wooden stake to the heart. Hell, Annie. Kept that boy safe all these years. All over this world. What a night. It was because of me. My daddy told me. Said the devil was coming on account of my music.

And once you've confirmed it, confrontation is the final section. It's essentially banishment and slumber. But yeah, I really like that kind of, like onset into discovery into confirmation can bleed into each other a little bit yeah.

Yeah going back into the the omens before we get to the manifestation but like i said because the vampire is introduced so late most of the omens in the omen section are about the antagonism of racism i guess for shorthanding it but they're that you've got their audacity on one side they're yearning for freedom on one side and then the world, like the systems of the world in which they live, pushing them back on the other side. And there are definite omens of that, but you've got some supernatural omens as well. You've got the classic rattlesnake jump scare, which is not related to vampires or anything like that. It's just like-

There's danger here. Yeah.

Danger is coming.

Vulture's flying. You kind of have those visual.

But the two that really stood out to me was delta slim played by delroy lindo he as they're driving to the duke joint he tells a story about his friend rice um and it's a really incredible, performance and an incredibly written story and it's all just like a reminder of how yeah the again he rice had the audacity to have money and to dream of going and setting up a church somewhere, and was lynched for it.

Me and my buddy Rice. There's hustling back and forth up the Delta. We get busted for vagueness. And white sheriffs, things down in the jailhouse, they sent it. They felt they sure they were going to kill us that night. They give us our instruments back, they tell us to play. Stack, we played. Preaching board, we played, you hear me? Music was coming out the windows. People on the street was stopping to come on in. Next day, one of them sheriffs, they got the bright idea, they're gonna take us on the road now. They cover us, throw us in a paddy wagon. They take us to this big house. I mean, it's full of white folks. Pass around like having to have us to play. See, these white folks we were playing for? They're real money. Had y'all playing them on ragtime, Sean. That sure was. We playing a fair amount of blues, too. See, white folks, they like the blues just fine. They just don't like the people who make it. Them Peckle Woods was nodding their heads, stomping their feet. Some of them was almost on the rhythm. And then Rice made me change it up, confuse them. What'd I do with the money? I drank it. Rice said he was going to take that money, going out to Little Rock, start him a little church. Did he? That damn fool. He took out all his money to pay for the $2 train ticket. The train conductor saw him. The clan got ahold to him, searched his pockets to find all that money. Made up a story about him killing some white man for it and raping that white man's wife. And they lynching right there in the railroad station. You know they cut off the manhood. Hmm. Hmm. Hmm. Hmm. Hmm.

I'm realizing that sinners really like weaponizes or or in like plays on the baggage that we're already bringing in like we already have cultural contextual knowledge of racism in america and of vampiric law um so like you i think the reason part of the reason why ryan coogler can get away with a really long first act with no horror in the horror uh per se um is because he's like really really good at like having this simmering dread underneath and we're bringing a lot of it um, that he doesn't have to work too hard to promise us that we're going to have this awesome horror aesthetic experience later.

For sure. And that's what the trailer promised us, right? But I do think it sustains itself. Like I was never bored in that first half. Even in my first watch, I was like, I'd almost forgotten the vampires were going to show up at some point, right?

Yeah. Also, the craft is top notch, yeah.

Well, I'm saying that, you know, to your point earlier, They are using tombs to have sources of escalating antagonism. It's just not the antagonist that we're expecting coming into the film necessarily.

Yeah.

I mean, one of the transgressions they're playing with is that the brothers stole from- Al Capone. The Italian mob and the Irish mob, right? That is a massive transgression that they allude to when someone else tries to break in. So, they're playing with that as a sin. And all these characters have committed sins and will continue to commit sins. Right. Like even when he meets both of them, uh, both of them, is it smoke? I'm, I'm, you know, there's the, the, the women turn up, right? Like the, the sources of temptation, uh, from both characters. And we're like, Oh, she's married, you know, like, Oh, in the context of this film, you're like, that's going to be a line he crosses.

Right.

So it's kind of, what's interesting is if we come, you know, just exploring this idea that transgression may be a sequence, not just an act, that first act is actually a whole series of transgressions.

Well, when do you think that it moves into Omens?

I mean, I think, yeah, as we're talking about this stuff is like, so the interesting thing about Omens is... I think both Rebel Ridge and Meet the Parents, the omens are more clearly from the horrors, right? The main horrors that are going to manifest, right? And they both have singular horrors in the way that this film has actually got dual horrors, which is the Ku Klux Klan and the vampires. So I actually think the omens are probably more to do once they've, uh, you have some discussion about spirits in the afterworld. So we're establishing that supernatural beliefs are part of this universe, but that's at like half an hour. And then we get those, then we see Renick and that is an omen. I don't think that is a manifestation. Right. And then it's from Rennick onwards until he shows his power. And even that they hold back what's happened to Mary. To Mary. That's right. So like, I think all that stuff, we know they're creepy.

Right?

But that power hasn't shown itself. So I think all that sequence from like 30-ish, 40, you know, 30 minutes on when the vampire turns up. I think all that first half of the second act, if not most of the second act, is actually omens.

Yeah.

Mary going into that room with Stack and they're getting it on and we see the bite mark on her back, that's still omen.

Yeah. So, Stu, you alluded to one omen that I just wanted to highlight is when Smoke goes to visit Annie, his previous lover, mother of their child who died, and there's two things seated in that scene. One is the like the plantation money and smoke has a big discussion about how there's no such thing as the supernatural there's only power and power is money i.

Can't believe you taking this make believe shit smoke give me my money for i'll cut your black ass you put that blade up on me, I'll trade you. I don't want your money. Don't be stupid. I ain't stupid. Your money come with blood. All money come with blood, baby. Not like yours. This shit won't even spend nowhere else. Look at it. I ain't going nowhere else. I don't need that cursed money you got. You know, woman, I've been all over this world. Cars. Ships. Trains. I've seen men die ways I didn't even know was possible. I ain't never saw no roots, no demons, no ghosts, no magic. Just power. And only money can give you that. You fool. All that war and whatever the hell you been doing in Chicago, and you back here in front of me through arms through legs through eyes and a brain that work how you know I ain't pray, I work every route my grandmama taught me to keep you and that crazy brother you're safe every day since you been gone, so why those roots ain't work on our baby then? I don't know.

And he's proven to be wrong in that. There is other forms of power other than money. They have money and they have still not got power by the end of the film. And then during that sequence, there's a moment where Annie is performing some rites of protection, but the like the the film shudders her voice gets distorted like there's a very deliberate set of effects that tell us the supernatural is real in this in this story and I do I actually agree with all of you guys I think either you think either the omens goes longer or manifestation is a sequence because the way that you could also think about it is Remick is manifesting two different characters at different times, right? When he appears, he manifests to the two clan members whom he converts and then is, It still feels like it's an omens, because when he shows up at the Duke joint, we as the audience know that they're omens, but none of the characters in the Duke joint do.

Which comes to your difference between onset and confirmation in the Carol methodology, which I'll just repeat for those who missed it the first time. Onset goes to discovery, goes to confirmation, goes to confrontation. I think Discovery is alluding to omens, but it's for the audience as much as anything else. And look, what's interesting about Toons being a game is the world is experienced by the characters. That's one of the things I enjoy. There's some really interesting writing of people interested in, like, about Landmark, Landmark's Mystery, something else. There's some stuff to do with describing the scenes and how you do it from a player perspective, and you basically use them as a camera and all that stuff. And it's really interesting tools for screenwriting because TTT RPGs, like screenwriting, are stories that are experienced in the present tense, right? They're unfolding forward. And so I think the one thing you're not going to necessarily do in a TTT RPG is go, oh, players, we cut to this thing, but none of you are aware of that. You might, right? Because what's the fun of the games I play with Mothership with Chaz and TTT? Maybe we'll do an actual play with you, Kim is that you've got the tension between the players genre awareness, and then them deciding how much the characters are aware of genre awareness. That's the tension. Oh, we know the character shouldn't open the door and everyone's like, but you have to open the door. We know the monster's there, but then there's some fun stuff with like the game with Chaz where the lab, he was, he was on a submarine starting to sink in the oceans of Europa. And there was something creepy happening and it's like there's a glowing light in the research lab and they're like, nope, nope, we are not, nope.

I touch it. I walk towards it. Yeah, one of the great things about Sinners is that even though Kugler really takes his time, it's such a confidently made film, it's so satisfying to see Annie get it. Like, you know, Annie figures out she's in a vampire mood really fast. And then there's not very much doubting time. I feel like Kugler really respects her intelligence in that way of people aren't doing stupid things. And even, you know, Grace's very controversial decision to invite them all in to have that, you know, final confrontation is entirely understandable within her character and the stakes for her.

Yeah.

And she's not wrong.

No, no.

He said he was going to take our daughter. You can't believe him. He was just trying to get you to let him in. He ain't threatening your children. You just got to stay through the night. And what? Let him kill my family? Kill the whole town? Turn everybody to monsters? That white devil spoke Chinese. He got him bow his mind. We got to stop them, Smoke. We got to get them before they get away. Why is she slowing you? Give me a second to think. Ain't you a soldier? Yeah. Didn't you just shoot two men for touching your truck? They killed your brother. Made stack one of them. My beau. Said they was going to kill Lisa. if now ain't go time then i don't know what is we're supposed to wait the night while they take more of our loved ones make them demons.

And a couple of points i this is i think all of this is subjective so long as you are using if you're using these words omens and manifestation and it brings up ideas for you that is in escalation fantastic to me i do actually think in this film manifestation is kind of as a sequence because it is once they are all aware that they're vampires and grace invites them in we definitely move into banishment Come on in.

You motherfucker! How you doing? Oh, shit.

Right so the yes the it's about choosing for this lens At what point is it when all the characters are fully aware of vampires, of the extent of the evil, of the extent of the power, which is when Remick is actually... Like Remick and Grace's husband, Beau, there and Mary and Stack as well. Like all these loved ones of the people on the inside of the Duke joint can see their loved ones as vampires on the outside and are being called to the outside. Like that's at the point where all the characters are fully aware and a decision gets made. So that, to me, that's the shift into Banishment because they then start moving into the montage of trying to figure out how to defeat the vampires. But the reason why I think manifestation happens earlier is you have, first of all, the, the, the, the, not antagonism, the, the counterforce, the protagonism, uh, of the music reaches its peak where they are all just reveling in their freedom. But it is right after that sequence a that sequence is what calls to the vampires because that's when they show up at the joint but b it's when smoke realizes that this uh venture of theirs is financially doomed because they're getting paid in plantation money not in american money so the the very people that they're looking to profit from uh under a system of control which means that they can't buy that freedom and it's that financial constraint it's that racism that system that forces mary the.

Dream evaporates yeah.

Well the dream evaporates and that's what prompts mary to go out and talk to these weird crackers who say that they have money right.

How all the plantations down there paying with credits, what about them crackers or the bottle i can go feel them out before they're too far gone i can feel them out myself they'll tell me more than they'll tell you and i can find out what they really have and what happens if they're from little rock they ain't.

And it's the it's the force of the dream the other source of antagonism that actually leads to the first vampire getting invited in, which is Mary.

That's so true.

And what we're talking about is conceptual tools, right?

Yes.

So if we're seeing these things as sequences and they help antagonism rise, part of what they're doing is rising to the point where wherever they hit, that flips it into the next stage, right? And that's the... And thus the line is going to be somewhat arbitrary from an analysis point of view. But what I like about it from a creative point of view is it's saying, how frequently are the omens coming? How are they getting more and more severe, right? At what point does the omen, the clue that you've followed, actually just turn into the monster, right? And then how is that monster spreading its wings so it gets more and more powerful? Right to that we have no point choice but to try to vanish it and i think even going back to transgression is instead of saying it's just a line that it's crossed but it's a sequence of events that you know it's the it's the alarm that gets louder and louder until the thing finally awakes right it can be a sequence or a chain of events and i think that is really useful because it starts to give you ideas of how you can organize your material as a writer and what you've brought out here, the connection between the horror story and the story of the Jim Crow South, right? The absolute systematic oppression of the African-Americans at this period of time and how they're connected at that moment, right? And I think that is more useful as a writer than going, actually, no, the manifestation absolutely happens on this page.

Right?

Because what ends up happening, and as I think we've possibly had it with our stories or red stories is you have key turning points but you have the turning point and then the kind of material slumps right and then it kind of the turning point's good and then the material slumps what's interesting about this of thinking them as rising points of escalation that transform is it keeps you evolving if you're like how does my force of antagonism keep on evolve and get more and more powerful right until it forces the characters they got no choice but to attempt banishment. That's going to help you think about it. And I definitely think Rebel Ridge, has a massive the manifestation in that is absolutely a sequence. The extent of the corruption and the power of that police is something that the film takes time to do. And in fact, it's structured as a mystery. The banishment in this is them it's actually kind of the they're under siege from the vampires it's almost like from dust till dawn and they have to fight their way up, And they literally kill Rennick, right? In theory that if they kill Rennick, I think, do they actually come up with that theory that if they kill Rennick- Okay.

So, can I just, I'm jumping in because you previously mentioned survive, solve, and save. While they're in the juke joint and they're safe, while they don't invite anyone in, you've got one character, Annie, who's like, we just need to stay here till dawn and we will survive. You've got smoke who's asking that question what if i kill the vampire who turned my twin will i get him back now annie answers no but smoke is trying to solve the problem of losing his brother annie is trying to survive and grace whose husband is saying if you don't let us in i'm gonna go home to our daughter and i'm gonna convert her grace is trying to save her daughter, um sorry yeah just you saying survive solve save now all those things could be conflicts within a single character or in this case they're dramatized with multiple characters but they're all in conflict i.

Think that is actually this is a great use because it's giving each of those things to different characters and therefore you've got really interesting dynamics right.

And throwing them into conflict that i think one of the reasons why twitter hated grace and her decision was because it was antithetical to the characters that we loved surviving that like the film would be very boring if they just stayed there for another few hours.

And.

Waited for the vampires to go away and lisa the daughter might be dead but at least our.

Characters are alive yeah um.

But yeah it's like to to have to kind of give different uh objectives to different characters and throw them into conflict.

When I watched the film the first time in cinemas that sequence felt very long to me the bit where they're like in between where everyone knows everything and they're trying to debate what to do until Grace invites them all in and watching it, The second time last night, and it was the first time for my wife seeing it, that sequence just flew by because I knew what was coming. I'm like, I was just enjoying the characters arguing with each other.

There's also, I think, with my experience in writing episodic horror, like to plot horror over, you know, in this case, six episodes, you do need some like relaxation, slackening kind of things. And it really helped after certain phases to ease up until the next omen.

Which is to have some slumber.

Yeah.

Or to have something to solve.

Right?

And the solve is connected to the omens, right? A lot of kind of ghost stories, the solving of the ghost leads you to another omen, right? I do really like the solve, save, and survive thing because we're talking about very clear plot questions. I think that is also a really super useful framework for a genre film. You know, these kinds of genre films that are very emphasized on externality. And not all horror is, you know. Does it apply to Midsommar?

It's definitely survive. And there's definitely a mystery of the trying to solve. They're like, how fucked up is this cult?

And there is, do I try to save my boyfriend? And the answer is no.

You stitch him into a bear suit.

Now I am the May Queen.

So in this film, the banishment sequence is fairly self-explanatory. There's two awesome set sequences where the banishment of the vampires followed by Smoke banishing the Ku Klux Klan. And then, yeah, there is slumber. And I think... It was fascinating. We watched this film, Kim, in cinemas with members of our writers group, and some of them absolutely hated the final scene.

Which one? The seeing him in the bar?

Yeah, seeing him in the bar. The pearling.

Interesting.

Yeah, whereas I fucking loved it. To me, it made everything come together.

Oh, for me, it was like, this is the slumber. Not that I had read Tombs at this point, but it was like, yeah, you absolutely need the horror beat of the vampires turning up when he's aged and they're fucking cool. Right.

But also like frozen in time that, you know, stack says like that day was the best, the greatest day of his life that even though he stayed young for however many years, sixties, seven years or something, he, he's still defined by that day, uh, frozen in that day.

The last day he saw his brother and the last day he saw the sun.

Maybe once a week, I wake up paralyzed, reliving that night. But before the sun went down, I think that was the best day of my life. Was it like that for you? No doubt about it. Last time I see my brother. I love you. The last time I seen the sun. Early in this morning. Just for a few hours. It was free.

Yeah.

And I think you're supposed to feel horror in that fear for Sammy, but I actually never felt afraid that they were about to turn Sammy. That wasn't the point of that scene. And the point of that scene was for them that they had genuine love for each other. And I think Sammy was happy to see them again, even though these were the vampires that gave him PTSD, that he wakes up paralyzed at least one night a week for the rest of his life. But he's still happy to see Stack and Mary.

And I would say, like, you know, the waking up paralyzed from these nightmares and the scar on his face is like that. Thing of the the innocence so the protagonists can't escape without some kind of um permanent scar or permanent damage.

It's what makes it horror right but he's still playing blues he's not he hasn't gone and become a pastor he's still risking it with the music.

And and look the he not only is he playing blues but they give him that choice again the very same choice that sammy makes in the beginning of the film, he is offered that same choice at the end and he makes the same choice. Even though going and playing for the sinners led him to this horrific interaction with vampirism, he still chose to play the blues and to drive away for freedom rather than follow the path his father wants for him.

This is a bit of a side note, but I think it's really interesting. I really love the reading of this movie. This is Ryan kugler grappling with being a tentpole hollywood filmmaker and like how do you navigate artistic expression especially as a black man in america working in hollywood at the level that he's working at and and what what do you do when your art that you're trying to make transcendental and break time with is so kind of like polluted or corrupted by commerce like how like, the vampire in this context like consumes and consumes whereas the artists in this world create um and the like the lure of just becoming a mindless consumer of of art of songs and to like assimilate yeah assimilate other art um but never actually create it yourself is constantly there uh i really love that that reading of it i think like the the tomb cycle of like, hollywood is vampiric or like you know the uh the commerce in what we do as uh as this kind of like temptation that's ever present that slumbers but then yeah awakens i.

Mean there we, I have heard interpretations of the original vampire myths being about the bourgeoisie and feudalism, you know, the hunger feeding on the peasants, right? Like, you know, Vladimir.

And also about immigrants, like, you know, an immigrant, a rich immigrant coming from abroad and buying up land. Vampires and real estate somehow, like, go hand in hand.

Yeah. And look, there's some interesting interpretations around Rennick being Irish in there. Kind of history of oppression, but then they've been able to be subsumed into whiteness as a political class, right? Like there's some interesting stuff in there. And look, this- Oh.

Very much.

This would make an excellent double feature with Get Out, right? Because Get Out's talking about appropriation and cultural appropriation in kind of similar ways and using horror as a way to do it.

And as you said, Get Out would also make a great double feature with Meet the Parents.

But we're not going to do that next. We're going to do- Yeah.

Rebel Ridge. Rebel Ridge. Let's do it.

Well, hopefully our discussions of Rebel Ridge and Meet the Parents are less, like I think got so much out of that discussion with Sinners, but hopefully it's laid the groundwork for our analysis of Rebel Ridge and Meet the Parents to be more straightforward. So, Stu.

I think in some ways they're more straight up and down films.

I mean, before we finish off with Sinners, I think it's excellent to see not only an original film do so well, but a film that is so richly layered and kind of somewhat unusual in its structures, right, do so well and resonate. As you say, there's some complexity in there and the fact that we can't quite clearly go, this beat, this beat, this beat, kind of shows you how powerful it is. And even though it's playing with conventions of the genre that we understand, we talk about it being like from Dust to Dawn or it's like Rio Bravo with vampires or it's got a bit of this, it's got a bit of that, it's still kind of pulling itself into somewhere They're unique, you know. I was going to talk about Last Thoughts. I was going to talk about him playing guitar at the end, the, you know, the ending after the S ending. Toombs.

Yeah. I think it's useful to think about the vampire cycle of hunting is kind of tombs adjacent as well, or feeds into it. A vampire slumbers in their coffin, they awaken, they feed on someone whose transgression often is just being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Um they manifest in the bite uh and then they like usually are successful in draining the their victim of blood only to go back and slumber again and so maybe some of the like omen manifestation quote-unquote muddiness that we were talking about earlier was about like remick has a few different cycles of of uh of feeding and hunting um and so like cycle like there are kind of mini fractal cycles within the larger movements of, of tombs in, um, in centers.

Yeah. I mean, I think the idea that tombs can be fractal is really useful, right? The guy, I mean, but we talk about this with, you know, scenes can have like, I think scenes, I think scenes have midpoints, you know, and a long enough scene is probably going to have a low point, right?

Yeah.

You know, because these are all tools to maintain interest. And this is a tool that's all about increasing antagonism. Right.

And I actually quite like that it doesn't, I think it maps more onto the classic act breaks in the other two films and less so here. And I like that. I think if we, we could easily break sinners down through classic act breaks and we would know exactly where those points and those shifts are. And it's interesting that the antagonism is not necessarily, it's escalating, but it's not necessarily escalating in line with, the journey the characters are on.

And speaking of journeys, this journey is going to continue in part two. I mean, we're going to still keep on recording, but we're not going to release it until... I want to say next month, but let's just hold your horses. Just for full relief, our journey will continue with Meet the Parents and Rebel Ridge, or Rebel Ridge and Meet the Parents next episode.

Listeners, be grateful that it is recorded, which means you will eventually hear it.

Thanks so much, guys.

Thanks to our patrons who bring you more Draft Zero more often, in particular to Alexandra, Jen, Jesse, Krob, Lily, Malay, Paolo, Randy, Sandra, Fies, and Thomas. And, yeah, thanks to you, Stu, for buying Mothership and bringing us all together.

Introducing Toothombs.

I hope you all feel like arguing with either Stu or myself about anything on this episode or anything in general. And you can find many ways of getting in touch with us at our website at draft-zero.com. At the website, you'll also find the show notes for this and all our other episodes. As well as links to support us and spread the word for free via a rating and review on Apple Podcasts. Very important for spreading the word. Or if you think that what we do here is worth a dollar or preferably more than a dollar, then you can also find links to our Patreon page to support us getting these episodes to you quicker. Thanks. And thanks for listening.