Sinners is a modern vampire classic with soul, bite, and Something to say
🥃🥃🥃🥃🥃 5 Stars – Top Shelf (Must-See!)
Sinners is now available to stream (you really should have seen it in theaters)
Set in the haunted heart of 1930s Mississippi, Ryan Coogler’s Sinners tells the tale of twin brothers – Smoke and Stack Moore (both played with uncanny precision by Michael B. Jordan) – returning home from war and gang life in Chicago to open a juke joint in Clarksdale. Their dream of peace is short-lived as they face the supernatural threat of Remmick, a smooth-talking Irish vampire (Jack O’Connell), who has designs not just on the town’s soul, but its sound. The battleground? Blues music, Black history, and the ghosts of the past.
But Sinners doesn’t just scare. It sings. It weeps. It burns slow and hot with meaning – subtly wrapping themes of appropriation, cultural resilience, and generational trauma in the skin of a genre movie. It’s a vampire film, yes – but one with the blood of an American epic.
Sinners cast is spot on
Michael B. Jordan pulls double duty and nails both ends of the emotional spectrum. As Stack, he’s charming, slick, and swaggering. As Smoke, he’s haunted, withdrawn, and nearly silent. It’s an acting masterclass in physical and emotional contrast, worthy of an Oscar made all the more powerful by Jordan’s refusal to overplay either brother. At times, you totally forget you’re watching one man play both of these roles.
Miles Caton (in a breakout performance) brings aching vulnerability and fire to Sammie, also known as ‘Preacher Boy,’ the young musical prodigy at the center of Remmick’s vampiric ambitions. His real life guitar work, performed live on screen, adds an authentic soul that reverberates through every frame.
The supporting cast is a dream: Hailee Steinfeld is magnetic as a traveling journalist, returning home to Clarksdale and with a lot of secrets of her own. Wunmi Mosaku commands every scene she’s in as the local hoodoo dealer. And then there’s Delroy Lindo, as the town’s whiskey-soaked preacher, who delivers monologues so rich they should come with subtitles… and a glass of moonshine.
Sinners is helmed by one of the best directors today
Ryan Coogler has never been more in command. Every frame is deliberate, every cut motivated. His script – co-written with Joe Robert Cole – is dense, lyrical, and deeply rooted in folklore and truth. The horror beats hit, but what stays with you are the subtext and silences: the way a glance lingers too long, or the way blood pools just slightly off camera. He knows when to show and when to let the imagination do the screaming.
Shot on 65mm by cinematographer Autumn Durald Arkapaw, the film uses a shifting aspect ratio that mirrors the duality of the world—wide and open during music sequences, tight and suffocating in scenes of horror. The juke joint is bathed in golds and ambers. The vampire’s lair? Sickly moonlight and shadow. It’s visual poetry.
Ah, the music and sound of the old South…
This film sounds like nothing else this year. Ludwig Göransson’s score, played on vintage 1930s resonator guitars, melds seamlessly with a soundtrack featuring Brittany Howard, Rod Wave, and James Blake. But it’s not just needle drops. The music is the story. The blues isn’t just background here—it’s the weapon, the temptation, the soul of the South itself.
Göransson and Coogler treat music like magic: forbidden, powerful, and deeply personal. It’s no surprise the climactic moment is a musical duel rather than a bloody brawl. And it works beautifully. Especially Caton. To portray Sammie, Caton had to learn how to play blues guitar and work on his Mississippi dialect and it pays off.
What makes it stand out?
Sinners doesn’t shy away from metaphor. Vampirism stands in for white exploitation. The juke joint becomes a sanctuary, a place where Black artistry thrives in defiance of death – literal and cultural. And the villain? He’s not just a bloodsucker – he’s a cultural thief. In the wrong hands, it could be overbearing and smack you over the head. But, in Coogler’s hands, it’s a gripping tale that leaves you with the lesson.
This is Get Out meets Interview with the Vampire, but soaked in the slow-simmering rage and pride of Beloved. It’s horror, yes—but it’s also history. Myth. Music. Magic.
Sinners is a vampire movie in the same way The Godfather is a mob film – it transcends genre by digging deep into identity, legacy, and pain. It’s a film with blood on its teeth and poetry in its veins. The kind of movie that rewards a second viewing – not to catch what you missed, but to relive what you felt.
Whether you’re here for the monsters, the music, or the meaning, this is one cinematic bite worth taking.
🥃🥃🥃🥃🥃 5 Stars – Top Shelf (Must-See!)
🏆 A modern horror classic with a blues-soaked heart and teeth that sink deep. A masterpiece worthy of its own mythology.
