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Sinners director Ryan Coogler says that the movie's practical effects were a nightmare for the crew (not the fun kind)

I guess you could say that, even though a lot of filming Ryan Coogler's sanguine sensation Sinners must've been fun, some of it... sucked

Image credit: Hailee Steinfeld/Instagram

Not that I'm complaining, but Sinners has been showing up a whole bunch in my feeds of late. It could be due to the fact that, at the end of a year, we tend to talk about the films that defined it (and made its biggest box office successes), or maybe it's because Ryan Coogler's vampire triumph has been nominated for seven (!) Golden Globes, per NBC News. But hear me out - as a massive horror hound, another reason I have found the film so algorhythmically success for me lately could be, well, all of the goddamn blood involved in making it.

And if so, well, I'm sure there will be some folks pretty happy to hear that. Because by the sounds of it, prying a movie out of all that red-hued corn syrup took quite a lot of effort.

You may recall Popverse reporting on how Sinners director Ryan Coogler said his actors were occasionally blinded by creepy animal-eye contacts they wore to pull of a vampiric effect on camera. "We got blood on the floor and shit," the Creed and Black Panther helmer had said, "So it was complicated."

Well, complicated doesn't seem to be the half of it.

"We got very prideful heads of departments, and we just covered everything in blood," Coogler explained in a recent interview with Entertainment Weekly. "[Production designer] Hannah [Beachler]'s like, 'Oh my God, my set!' And [costume designer] Ruth [Carter]'s like, 'Oh my God, my costumes!' And then [cinematographer] Autumn [Durald Arkapaw]'s like, 'Jesus Christ, my camera!'" 

Yep, it seems like there was virtually no part of the Sinners set that didn't get at least a little bit of fake blood on it. And since this is just between you and me, I'll ask the question I know we're both thinking: What about craft services? Think any of those vampire actors went method by accident?

I'll keep an eye on my feed and let you know.

Sinners is streaming on HBO Max now.


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Grant DeArmitt

Grant DeArmitt: Grant DeArmitt (he/him) likes horror, comics, and the unholy union of the two. In the past, and despite their better judgment, he has written for Nightmare on Film Street and Newsarama. He lives in Brooklyn with his partner, Kingsley, and corgi, Legs.

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