Zach Vasquez
One of the unexpected pleasures of Ryan Coogler’s recent blockbuster Sinners is how much of it is based in musicology. Coogler sets his vampire siege film in a jook joint in the Mississippi Delta, a foundational locale for both blues—indeed, all forms of American roots music—and Black folklore.
In the wake of Sinners’ success, much has been made of its various influences, from specific horror films like The Shining (1980), Tales from the Crypt: Demon Knight (1995), and From Dusk Till Dawn (1996), to Coogler’s personally curated list of over 40 individual cinematic and literary inspirations.
One film not explicitly cited by Coogler and little discussed by viewers—which, if not a direct influence on Sinners is at least trading in much of the same mythology and thus in conversation with it—is Crossroads, the 1986 genre mashup from everyone’s favorite two-fisted auteur, Walter Hill.
Crossroads stars Ralph Machio as ‘Lightning’ Eugene Martone, a 17-year-old Long Island guitar prodigy and student at Julliard. Despite his preternatural skill with classical music, Martone is only interested in the blues. His attempts to track down a lost track from the legendary Robert Johnson leads him to a rest home where Johnson’s old partner, forgotten harp player Willie Brown, aka Blind Dog Fulton (Joe Seneca), is wasting away his remaining days. After first rejecting Eugene’s aspirational attentions, Willie strikes up a deal with the kid: help spring him from the old folks’ home and get him back to Mississippi, and he’ll teach him the lost tune. Along the way they pick up feisty runaway Frances (Jamie Gertz) and form a makeshift hobo family.
What follows is an archetypal American adventure steeped in the lore of the South: our heroes run afoul seedy pimps, crooked Sheriffs, and redneck brawlers. Young love blossoms but ends in heartbreak. Eugene learns what it takes to become a real bluesman, while Willie gets one last shot at redemption.
That redemption is literal: while the majority of Crossroads is a traditional road trip/buddy comedy/coming of age story, it is ultimately a supernatural tale about a man trying to win his soul back from the actual devil. As seen through flashbacks, Willie learned his trade at the same fabled crossroads as Robert Johsnon, similarly signing away his soul to an Satan, here known as Scratch and played with sinister glee by Robert Judd, a stage actor whose only other feature credit is the awesome and wildly transgressive 1977 exploitation thriller Fight For You Life.
These monochrome scenes are depicted as Willie’s personal memories and dreams, so the audience, like Eugene, is likely to question their reality—right up to the tail end of the film, a climactic guitar duel between a seemingly outmatched Eugene and one of Scratch’s ringers (real life guitar maestro Steve Vai, who may well be playing himself), with both he and Willie’s immortal salvation at stake (a la “The Devil Went Down to Georgia”).
Nowhere in Sinners is there any direct mention of Robert Johnson or the tall tales surrounding him. But the hero of that film, aspiring blues musician Preacherboy Sammie (Miles Caton), is clearly meant to invoke Johnson. Beyond their similar ages, Sammie finds himself at a metaphorical crossroads, his religious father trying to get him to abandon his artistic pursuits in the name of the church. As he warns Sammy at the beginning of the film, “You keep dancing with the devil, one day he’s going to follow you home.”
Both Crossroads and Sinners depict music as a gateway between our world and the spirit realm: when Eugene and Willie finally make it to the crossroads, Willie instructs him to play something on his guitar, explaining that “If you’re playing it right, he’s going to come around.” Sure enough, within a few seconds of Eugene’s strumming, the forces of perdition appear. (Crossroads also features some of the same hoodoo totems as Sinners, such as protective mojo bags.)
Unlike Sinners, Crossroads doesn’t feature any huge tonal gearshifts once the supernatural elements appear. Coogler’s film is a maximalist spectacle, whereas Hill’s is a smaller slice of magical realism. It wouldn’t be right to call Crossroads even a partial horror movie, although there are a couple of legitimately unnerving moments—including a dream sequence that sees Scratch’s representative (the great Joe Morton) grow larger in stature as he moves through a doorway and a discombobulating, weather-based scene transition—that wouldn’t feel out of place in a David Lynch film.
That Crossroads paired Macchio with an older mentor of a different race and ends with him winning a big public showdown against a flashier rival doomed it for comparison to The Karate Kid, especially since that massive hit had come out only two years prior and its first sequel would be released a mere three months later. Whereas that latter film racked up over $100,000,000 domestically during its run, Crossroads grossed a little over $5 million. It became a staple of cable television, but its reputation during most of that time was that of an odd Karate Kid ripoff. Perhaps if it had leaned more into horror—or shied away from it completely—it might have fared better.
Ultimately, none of this, but especially genre, matters. More than anything, Crossroads is pure Walter Hill (although the script from John Fusco, himself a young would-be blues guitarist, was personally resonant). Like any number of his pictures, it trades in the iconography of the Great Depression (Hard Times, Streets of Fire, Last Man Standing); features meticulously staged, yet rollicking scenes of live music (Southern Comfort, Streets again) and a slide guitar score from his closest and greatest collaborator, Rye Cooder; and concludes with a knock-down-drag out fight (Hard Times again, Streets again, Undisputed), only here, instead of fisticuffs, it’s two dudes duking it out with tasty guitar licks.
Watching Crossroads through 2025 goggles might leave it looking a little problematic, what with it centering around an entitled white kid being schooled by an old black man (who, while not a full on ‘magical negro’ stereotype, is nonetheless tied to magic) in a Black artform. But the film itself is aware of this, with Willie constantly calling out Eugene as an interloper and culture vulture. And, in an ingeniously ironic twist, Eugene is only able to win the big guitar duel by embracing his fancy schooling (as well as his own ethnic heritage) and busting out some Paganini.
Ultimately though, Crossroads, like Sinners, embraces the myth of the tramping musician in all of its rugged individualism. You’ve got to follow your muse, even if she brings you face to face with the devil.
“Crossroads” is streaming on Tubi and is available for digital rental or purchase.
