Sinners #3: Resurrection Without Transformation
Hollywood Horror and Easter Hope
We are in Eastertide. As tulips fade and spring thunderstorms roll in, I've been thinking about resurrection. Not just because it's liturgically appropriate (though there is that), but because of two powerful stories that play and engage Resurrection Hops. Ryan Coogler’s new film Sinners and Mike Flanagan's limited series Midnight Mass, which I have written extensively about before. Both explore a theme that's particularly unsettling to those of us who proclaim Easter hope: false resurrection.
When the Dead Offer Life
In Coogler's Sinners, we encounter Remmick, a charming Irish vampire who offers a twisted version of eternal life. A vampire’s bite — as it does in Sinners — acts as a curse that traps a person’s soul in their body preventing them from moving on to the afterlife instead they’re cursed to live a dark bloodthirsty lifestyle. This is resurrection inverted – not freedom from death, but imprisonment within it.
