Kinda feels like people are overthinking Sinners coming to the event. The movie being long, a slow build in the first half, and thematically-dense with material the designers probably wouldn’t touch is a problem that solves itself; you just pare things down to the horror elements. An effective house is one that’s environment, not narrative, first.
So, the question instead should be is there enough interesting material to cover a three minute walkthrough? Considering Sinners is cleaning up in technical nominations across the industry, probably.
Music and set design in the film are top notch and can translate well into interesting house environments, and while vampire costuming and makeup is simple, it has the benefit of being lightweight enough to allow the cast to be aggressive with scares and let their performance carry things. They’ve already solved the question of the Twins with the Us house in 2019.
Repetitive environments/scares could be a concern, but they’ve done more with less before like The Exorcist. Just for fun, I threw together some notes for a potential walkthrough, spoilers for the movie but I think it’s pretty straightforward:
- Façade – Projection of woodcut animation explaining the music/vampire lore
- Remmick at the couple’s house, vampire hunters as distraction with couple as victim scare
- Hallway with Smokestack twins, double scare fakeout (it’s a jump but no actual scare like the cat lady from Trick R Treat) with audio clip narration introducing them
- Open up to the woods/juke joint reveal, “picked poor robin clean” performance outside with Remmick and couple who lunge at you walking by
- “I Lied To You”, mannequins to fill out room and some more fakeout jump scares (again, they pop out but its celebratory, not scary) the spirits of musicians
- Back room of Mary Killing Stack as distraction, Smoke shooting as jumpscare
- Hallway of Stack and Mary as vampires popping out (“we’re gonna kill all of you”), banging on doors
- Exit to woods for Rocky Road to Dublin projection for dancers, Remmick, Cornbread and Bo jumpscares
- Back inside, gauntlet of vampires vs. survivors (“Sammy!”)
- Final projection of the sun with Sammy/Smoke
- Exit scare of a rotating Stack/Mary in 90s clothing
For me, Sinners is a rare horror IP as something that’s popular, legitimately great, and reasonably adaptable. Could be great, and if not, there’s four other IP houses to carry the load instead. If if sucks it wouldn’t be the first time the headliner disappointed... so why not just give it a try anyway?