3 out of 5 Vampire Attacks (Average)
Note: Upon a second viewing of Sinners, I found it far more enjoyable than the review suggests. I had gone in expecting a completely different kind of film from the marketing, but when I saw it again knowing what kind of horror movie it actually was, I loved it. It’s a campy, fun horror movie with well-pitched performances, good gore, and a celebration of the positive power of music that has a spot on my best of the year list. Even still, enjoy my initial thoughts of it below.
I wish I felt more passionately about Sinners. Coming to us from writer/director Ryan Coogler (Creed, the Black Panther films) and lead by a dual performance from his go-to star Michael B. Jordan, the movie begins promisingly as a period drama before changing course into a campy vampire movie that’s handsomely shot and gifted with a strong cast that isn’t given much to bite into. Add near-constant music (some of which is purposeful for its primary location and themes, some of which feels indulgent) and a tone that can’t decide if it wants us to laugh at its villains or fear them, and you have a movie that’s entertaining to watch, but, for me, at least, lacked the bite it was so clearly striving for.
Mississippi, 1932: Twin brothers Smoke and Stack (Both played by Michael B. Jordan) have returned to their hometown to run a whites-free Juke Club (with the exception of the secretly biracial Mary who slept with Stack awhile back, played by Hailee Steinfeld). After picking up their friends Pearline (Jayme Lawson), Cornbread (Omar Miller), lovable alcoholic Delta Slim (Delroy Lindo), musical prodigy and preacher’s son Sammie “Preacher Boy” Moore (Miles Caton), and the kindly Chow couple Grace (Li Jun Li) and Bo (Yao) to party at and run their establishment, the beer, debauchery, and blues music flows free into the night until the fun is halted by some Klan vampires (Jack O’Connell, Lola Kirke, and Peter Dreimanis) with blood-suckery on the brain. With nowhere to run, our heroes must survive the night the best they can and try to stake their enemies before it’s too late.
Sinners is an entertaining crowd-pleaser, but falters in its attempts to reach greater heights. Ryan Coogler tries to juggle racially-charged drama, purposefully laughable camp, humor, bloody horror, and wish-fulfillment action all in one, and while some of those elements work individually, very rarely do they all mesh tonally. Music is naturally a huge proponent of the film, and while some of it works to set the mood and period, other times the songs are distracting (though the musical score itself is strong throughout). The performances are good yet uneven, with Jordan and Steinfeld mostly playing things straight while the supporting cast goes over-the-top. The bad guys resultingly aren’t as threatening as they could be given the stakes (pun fully intended), though their ultimate plan in the story is both scary and believable within the period setting and the parallel between vampires and the KKK’s poisonous effect on the world and people around them is smartly executed. The brother’s dynamic and relationships with the other characters feel underdeveloped, but if you want good campy fun, you’ll get plenty of it here.
That said, the final minutes of Sinners end the film on an unexpected high, the theme of music as a unifying force is always welcome, and the action and performances are solid throughout, so it’s worth a look if you like your vampire movies drenched in camp. Sinners is entertaining enough as vampire horror, but an uneven tone and underdeveloped characters keep it from singing the cinematic high note it wants to.
Rated R for Strong Bloody Violence, Sexual Content, and Language