Film Review: Sinners

Spoilers!!

An ode to the subversiveness of music and dance, sexuality, and Blackness (which is to say, mere existence, much less an elevated form of thriving, as a Black person in this time was its own form of subversiveness), Ryan Coogler’s 2025 film he both directed and wrote, Sinners, is a barn-burner of a horror flick, with outstanding performances, foot-tapping music, gorgeous set pieces, and a palpable sense of foreboding. Coogler hasn’t had a bad movie yet in his 12 years as a feature film director. Everyone knows about 2018’s Black Panther, but don’t sleep on 2013’s Fruitvale Station, which also features another spellbinding, if more understated, performance from Michael B. Jordan. Indeed, what a great, dynamic duo Coogler and Jordan are.

Set in 1932 Mississippi, Jordan plays twins Smoke and Stack, who have come back from robbing the Italian and Irish mobs in Chicago to build a juke joint (drinking and music) in their hometown. Smoke and Stack have zero compunction about being the money-wielding, gun-toting criminals they are. Indeed, they’ll shoot you in the leg to maintain their hardened reputation. The beginning of the film showed them amassing the necessary people to pull off opening night at the juke joint, including Sammie, aka “Preacher Boy” ((played fantastically in his debut role by Miles Caton), the twins’ cousin and an aspiring musician, much to his preacher father’s chagrin; Delta Slim (played by Delroy Lindo, a drunken pianist; Pearline (played with sultry aura by Jayme Lawson), a singer who Sammie crushes on; Grace Chow (played by Li Jun Li, who absolutely crushes it in her big moment trying to galvanize Smoke against the vampires), a shopkeeper who helps with the design of the place; and Cornbread (played by Omar Miller), the bouncer who needed some, uh, cajoling to leave his wife and children behind. What everyone involved didn’t realize was two things, one very much of this world and one very much not: a.) the person who sold them the sawmill is the leader of the local KKK and he planned to return the evening of the grand opening with the rest of the KKK to burn the place down; and b.) Remmick (played chillingly by Jack O’Connell), an Irish vampire, is out for blood (but it’s not a race thing, he clarifies!).

Sammie was so powerful with his music and his guitar at the juke joint, it was quite literally transcendent, summoning musical spirits of the past and the future, which also garnered Remmick’s attention. He arrived with a married couple (and the man is one of the KKK members) he recently turned into vampires. He tried to play it like they want to enter the establishment to play their music. Because vampires need to be invited in, after all. But because they were suspicious white people trying to enter a juke joint, the twins turned them away. Unfortunately, Stack’s ex-girlfriend, Mary (played by Hailee Steinfeld), who could pass as white, offered to go and see what they’re all about because they could use the income. Instead, she’s turned and that’s when all hell broke loose. Since she presented as Mary still, she was able to reenter the juke joint. Being direct and forward, she started making love to Stack. She turned him! It was stunning! That scene was juxtaposed with Smoke and his people beating up (incessantly!) some dude who pulled a knife on him and you were just dying for Smoke and Sammie to get in there in time to save Stack. It was intense and tense in equal measure! Smoke was devastated, of course, but that was the moment in the film when the other characters realized what was going on. Mary fled the juke joint, but not before giddily saying her and the other vampires were going to “kill them all.”

Smoke’s wife, Annie (played with such presence by Wunmi Mosaku), is into spirits and all that, which imbittered Smoke because that didn’t save their infant child from dying. Because of that, though, she’s the one who led the charge in identifying the vampires as such and fighting back against them. Garlic, wooden sticks, sunlight, and of course, not letting anyone, including the newly turned Stack, from entering the juke joint. Stack was initially locked in the room where he was attacked by Mary, which made for another intense scene as he demanded to be let out and then clobbered down the door and Sammie, fleeing the juke joint.

Many of the juke joint patrons exited after Stack’s death, only to then be turned and added to Remmick’s growing horde of vampires. What later followed is one of my favorite moments from the film. As I alluded to earlier, Grace galvanized Stack and the rest of them to go after the vampires instead of waiting around until dawn, particularly because the vampires already turned her husband, Bo, and threatened to pay their daughter a visit. In a bad-ass or crazy (depending on your perspective) scene, Grace invites the horde in. As the horde descended upon the juke joint, the film went from widescreen to full screen. That switch, at least on my IMAX screening, really echoed the momentous clash about to occur! Many of the characters we’ve come to love were sadly killed, including Grace, Annie, and Delta Slim. Pearline later is bitten, too. Sammie ran while Smoke and Stack battled it out. It seemed like Remmick was going to have his way with Sammie, which would take on more importance perhaps given Sammie’s transcendental prowess, but Sammie smashed the guitar he’s still holding over Remmick’s head and Smoke also arrived just in time to impale Remmick to death, finishing him off. Finally, the sun arrived, too, killing off the rest of the horde (or so it appeared!).

At that point, I was wondering about the moment in the trailer where Jordan’s character used a bad-ass machine gun to mow down some people. I didn’t have to wait long to see it. Earlier, Remmick tried to cajole Smoke by telling him about the KKK’s nefarious plot to ambush the juke joint. So, with nothing to lose, Smoke went after the entire KKK who had amassed at sunrise to attack the juke joint. He died in the process, though, but before he did, he saw Annie and their infant son.

Having survived, Sammie makes it to church services in the morning like he promised, bloody, disheveled, grief-stricken, but still holding his broken guitar. Throughout the film, including a tense interaction with one of the twins (I forget which), Sammie made it abundantly clear he wants to pursue being a musician, not stuck doing field work in Mississippi for the rest of his life. Playing music was freedom. His form of salvation. So, when his dad implored him to drop the guitar and denounce his “sinning” ways as a musician, he didn’t. In a mid-credits scene 60 years later in 1992, Sammie is playing music in a band appropriately called Pearline, when Stack and Mary drop in looking very much like two people of the early 1990s. That was shocking! Last we saw, Smoke was going to kill Stack, but Stack told Sammie Smoke let him “live” as long as he left Sammie alone. This was actual a lovely, nostalgic little reunion, despite Stack and Mary being vampires. Sammie told them that night, at least before the blood hit the fan, it was the greatest night of his life, likely because it was the first night he ever truly felt free. Stack agreed since it was the last time he saw his twin, the sun, and also felt free. Now, he’s trapped within immortality. It does make you wonder how they’ve survived for the past 60 years: how many people have they killed and/or turned?!

There’s also a post-credits scene as well with Sammie singing, “This Little Light of Mine.” He wasn’t going to let anyone, including his preacher father or vampires, dim or extinguish that little light of his.

What a film! This vampire film was sexy, but not in the Twilight or Interview with the Vampire way. Sexy in its subversiveness. Alluring. You wanted to be in that crowd at the juke joint! Maybe not so much once the vampires came, but all the same. Sometimes when you’re watching a film, you know early on it’s going to be great. I knew when Sammie walked into the church looking the way I previously described, I was in for a treat. As a huge horror fan, I also love seeing so much immense talent in front of and behind the camera dedicating their skills and creativity to the horror genre. And I would be remiss if I didn’t emphasize how beautiful the film looked, thanks to Autumn Durald Arkapaw. I’m still thinking about those seemingly endless Mississippi fields. Additionally, I must mention how entrancing the music truly was, thanks to Ludwig Göransson. I had Jayme Lawson’s, “Pale, Pale Moon,” on repeat shortly after seeing the film. Everyone from Coogler to Jordan to Arkapaw to Goransson were in top form and it made for a pitch-perfect film. I cannot recommend Sinners enough. It’s a bloody good time at the movie theater!