[Quick Summary: Troubled twins set up a juke joint in the South, but vampires stand in the way of its success.]
In this well written script, I particularly enjoyed how the writer built suspense with an uneasy feeling that something is wrong.
For example, in the scene below:
- Smoke and Stack are twins who have come back to the South, after fleeing Chicago.
- They have decided to set up a juke joint and charge cover fees.
- They hire Annie to cook for the joint.
- Annie is a practitioner of the occult, and was once an item with Smoke.
- One of their employees, Cornbread, has been missing for awhile and returns.
- Notice how the scene starts out with an argument and Cornbread's offer to help.
- Though viewers may not know the vampire rule (you have to be asked to enter a building), they sense that Annie is uneasy about something.
- She does not say out loud what she suspects, but challenges Cornbread to act.
- I thought it was clever how Cornbread avoids the question and throw the focus back on Annie.
- Also, it's unusual to create a reveal of this vampire rule without telling it, but showing in the reactions and other dialogue unrelated to what is being revealed.
INT. ENTRY HALLWAY - JUKE JOINT - LUMBER MILL - NIGHT - CONTINUOUS
...Cornbread finally notices Smoke is covered in blood.
CORNBREAD: Goddamn Smoke...what happened to you?
SMOKE: What happened to me? Stack is dead. What the fuck happened to you? You was supposed to be watching the place. Not taking a hour long piss.
CORNBREAD: I'm sorry. Well let me come in and help.
Annie clocks this. [Annie is the first to have suspicions.]
She extends her hands to Smoke to stop him.
Smoke looks back at Annie confused. Delta Slim as well.
They stare at Cornbread, who stares back at them with an almost comically confused expression.
CORNBREAD: What ya'll doing?
The three continue to stare without budging.
CORNBREAD (CONT'D): Smoke. Just step aside and let me on in. [He needs an invitation.]
ANNIE: Why you need him to do that? You big and strong enough to push past us. [Annie confronts him with a question that requires him to act first. This is, in essence, "showing, not telling" about the vampire rules, which the audience may or may not know about. ]
CORNBREAD: Because that wouldn't be very polite of me now, would it? I don't know why I'm even talking to you. Probably your fish sandwich that made me so sick. Using that old stale grease. [Cornbread knows she is suspicious, so he tries to distract her.]
ANNIE: I ain't never used stale grease and you know it. [His accusation puts her on the defensive about her food.]
WHAT I'VE LEARNED: One way to "show and not tell" the vampire rules is to require the vampire to violate the rule, i.e., to act.
"Show, not tell" usually means visuals and not dialogue. The example above was a rare instance of using other dialogue and reactions, rather than what I expected, i.e., visuals alone.
Sinners (2025)(undated draft)
by Ryan Coogler /
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