Warning: SPOILERS for Sinners.

There’s only so much visible gore and deaths for the bulk of the runtime in Sinners, but that’s hardly surprising when seeing how that choice affects the movie overall. From looking at Sinners’ positive reviews, it’s clear that the film’s tone and narrative have resonated with a fair number of viewers. Sinners’ box office has led to WB’s best month of the year thus far, with many considering the movie a frontrunner to become the best original horror movie of the year.

It’s the lack of over-the-top death scenes that contributes to the movie’s quality. Hiding certain deaths affects Sinners’ ending in some particularly notable ways as well. And, since Ryan Coogler specifically directed the film to be genre-fluid rather than a straight horror movie, it can be argued that keeping most deaths offscreen helps maintain the film’s atmospheric versatility. But even when looking at the film solely as a horror feature, Coogler’s decision to hide a lot of the violence still makes sense.

Sinners Hiding Its Deaths/Vampire Transformations Is A Classic Horror Move

There Are Even Some Horror Films That Show No Death At All

Jack O’Connell’s Sinners character Remmick might not take many lives onscreen, but there’s quite a bit of precedent for that. In the same way movies like Alien and Friday the 13th originally kept their main villains largely out of frame, many horror movies have forgone showing excessive deaths at all. Films like Rosemary’s Baby and The Others rely primarily on suspense to milk unease without leaning on big death scenes to fuel the viewer’s growing discomfort. Like many of the best horror movies, they’re far more concerned with story than with body count.

There are plenty of other movies that do the same. The Conjuring, The Babadook, Eraserhead, Poltergeist, and Coherence are all well-known examples of movies where the horror doesn’t stem from an overabundance of gruesome murders. The 1986 movie April Fool’s Day particularly exemplifies this notion, with the murders occurring offscreen to set up a particularly unexpected twist for a slasher flick. And, in part due to Sinners’ racism subplot, Coogler’s vampire movie also uses its onscreen deaths to set up some shocking ending twists.

Sinners Makes Its Bloody Final Battle Bigger By Actually Showing A Lot Of People Dying

The Movie Waits Until The Climax To Really Go All Out

Because Sinners’ vampire rules follow traditional lore, the climactic battle at the juke joint is only able to occur when Grace recklessly invites Remmick’s horde to storm the bar. While much of the horror had previously gone undepicted, several characters on both the human and vampire sides of the battle are shown dying in the final Sinners fight. Had earlier violence been shown more directly, the string of main character deaths that follow might have landed with less impact. In this way, Sinners beautifully balances the horror of the unseen with that of the unexpected.

Holding off on the film’s most graphic violence also plays a role in establishing Sinners’ deeper meaning. Rather than ending things with the climactic vampire battle, Sinners instead chooses to end with a ᴅᴇᴀᴅly firefight between Smoke and a mob of Klansmen. Seeing this violence unfold in broad daylight when Remmick mostly killed offscreen does well to underline the naked brutality of Hogwood’s racist motivations. The scene might have felt extraneous had the rest of the film been sH๏τ differently, but it instead serves as a poignant bookend to Smoke’s overarching storyline.

Sinners’ Concealment & Misdirection Allows For The Final Plot Twist

The Post-Credits Scene Would Be Less Effective Otherwise

Hailee Steinfeld’s Sinners character Mary and Michael B. Jordan’s Stack are the only two vampires confirmed to survive at the end, but their survival isn’t technically revealed until the end-credits scenes. Although it’s strongly suggested, they exit the fight separately and aren’t immediately shown to have survived the sunrise that killed the rest of the horde. Because the bloody climax so greatly contrasts the movie’s earlier lack of onscreen deaths, it’s ironically harder to keep track of who actually survives. Their exits from the fight might have otherwise drawn much more attention.

This is just one of the many things that makes the film feel so beautifully crafted from start to finish. Especially considering that it’s the first original story in all of Ryan Coogler’s movies, it’s impressive just how much disquieting eeriness pervades even some of the non-horror scenes in Sinners. Scenes such as the reveal of Sammie’s supernatural musical ability would feel cheap if they were bookended by routine jumpscares and gory deaths. As is, every death and survival reveal hits with the precise amount of gravity it should.