Although the villains of Sinners are undoubtedly vampires, the movie’s characters reference “Haints” when first attempting to diagnose the threat. Director Ryan Coogler’s Sinners has has broken all manner of box office records since its release, as well as earning superb reviews. The widespread acclaim and commercial success of Coogler’s movie is well-earned, as Sinners is a complex, rewarding, and daring blend of musical, horror, action, and melodrama that brings together many of the helmer’s earlier thematic preoccupations in a uniquely satisfying package.

Although the ending of Sinners is as poignant as it is unsettling, the movie’s main storyline is a slow-burn plot. For the first half of its runtime, Sinners plays out like a crime drama about a pair of brothers returning to their hometown to open a juke joint, only to run into racist locals, old heartbreaks, and other obstacles along the way. However, Sinners takes a wild swerve midway through when the juke joint is attacked by an Irish American vampire and his two accomplices, turning Coogler’s story into an intense siege horror.

A Haint Is A Supernatural Being In Southern Folklore

Haints Are Evil Spirits Derived From African Spiritual Traditions

Although Remmick is the main villain of Sinners, the movie’s most shocking moment of violence comes from Hailee Steinfeld’s Mary. Stack’s love interest is turned into a offscreen by the villains, and she returns to the juke joint eager to find Michael B Jordan’s gregarious protagonist. She lures an unsuspecting Stack into a storeroom and seduces him before brutally tearing out his throat and feeding on his blood, at which point she is caught by the rest of the cast. Mary and Stack’s unlikely survival after this bloody scene proves to the heroes that something is seriously wrong with both characters.

When Mary seemingly walks off a flurry of bullet wounds and Stack returns from the ᴅᴇᴀᴅ to attack his brother Smoke, Smoke’s love interest, Annie, suggests that Mary and Stack have become “Haints.” This term is never explained onscreen in Sinners, but the movie’s roots in Southern folklore make sense of the comment. As explained by AtlasObscura, a haint is a malevolent supernatural spirit derived from African spiritual traditions that can, after escaping its human form, “Paralyze, injure, ride (the way a person might ride a horse), or even kill innocent victims” at night.

How A Haint Is Different From A Vampire

Vampires Are Unᴅᴇᴀᴅ Humans Whereas Haints Are Spirits

Haints have their roots in the beliefs of enslaved people and the Gullah Geechee, but they are distinct from vampires. The spirit’s description might sound similar to a vampire, but the vampires of Sinners are different from haints in numerous ways. For one thing, vampires still have a solid corporeal form, as they inhabit the bodies of their now-ᴅᴇᴀᴅ selves. In contrast, haints are spirits that can possess bodies but don’t have bodies of their own. Meanwhile, vampires can turn humans into other vampires as Remmick demonstrates, whereas haints don’t typically operate this way.

Furthermore, most vampires feed on the blood of the living to survive, and cannot enter a home unless invited inside. Haints don’t drink the blood of the living and don’t need an invitation to enter a home, meaning there are other supersтιтions attached to avoiding the spirits in folklore. Where one might use garlic or crosses to deter vampires, haints are scared away by a particular shade of blue that has become commonplace thanks to its ᴀssociation with warding off the spirits.

Sinners’ Colors Also Referenced Haints

Haint Blue Is A Shade Used To Ward Off Haints

“Haint blue” is used throughout Annie’s wardrobe and home decor in Sinners as a subtle way to hint at her familiarity with paranormal phenomena. The color was, according to AtlasObscura, first derived from a dye produced on Southern plantations. Painting a home “Haint blue” or handing blue glᴀss bottles from trees was said to discourage haints from entering, either by trapping the spirits or scaring them off. “Haint blue” was said to confuse haints and convince them that they were traveling into water or the sky, neither of which would contain human victims to hunt.

Unfortunately, the Mississippi vampires of Sinners aren’t as easily defeated as haints, and most of the movie’s main cast end up mᴀssacred by the monsters. The use of “Haint blue” throughout Annie’s wardrobe is pivotal in this regard, as it acts as an early indication that Smoke’s love interest is familiar with voodoo traditions and Southern folklore. As such, it is not a shock when she proves the most adept at preparing the group to fight vampires and eventually defeat Remmick, albeit at the cost of their lives. Thus, the haint reference also acts as subtle foreshadowing.

How Sinners’ Haint Reference Ties Into The Film’s Larger Ideas

Haints Are Supernatural Villains That Hit Closer To Home For The Heroes

While there are no onscreen appearances from haints in Sinners, it still makes sense for Coogler’s movie to reference the mythical monsters. Haints are intrinsically tied to Southern Black culture and the unique experiences of the region’s people, so the mention of the monsters serves to make the story feel grounded in its real-life location. While Sinners’ Night of the Living ᴅᴇᴀᴅ similarities are palpable, the movie’s ties to Black culture make an otherwise familiar story feel fresh, authentic, and lived-in. This is most clearly captured in the blues music sequences.

However, it is not just Sammy’s playing that proves Sinners owes a debt of inspiration to Southern culture. The prevalence of “Haint blue” throughout the movie, the offhand mentions of traditional concepts like haints themselves, and the dialogue all coalesce to give Sinners a lived-in perspective. Sinners isn’t simply a straightforward vampire movie, but instead a Southern Black vampire movie with all the cultural attachments that description entails. Thus, casually mentioning haints in the movie’s dialogue reinforces its Southern roots.

Annie’s attempts to ward off haints not only inform the ways she fights the vampires, but also her role in Sinners more broadly. By keeping Smoke in touch with his heritage, Annie ensures that he survives an encounter with a vampire that literally wants to feed off his culture. While Stack succumbs to the vampiric curse, Smoke survives in part due to Annie’s awareness of Southern spiritual traditions and Black culture. Thus, more than a name-check of an obscure supernatural monster, the “Haints” of Sinners are a testament to the movie’s links to Black Southern heritage and cultural history.

Source: AtlasObscura