When is a vampire movie not a vampire movie? When it’s Sinners. I’m totally cool with that, since we’ve had vampire movies all the way back to 1922 with the OG Nosferatu. For a century and change, the undead have slaughtered their way across movie screens, with virtually every possible variant having already been portrayed.

I’m good with that! I’m not one of those cooler-than-thou critics that will endlessly bitch about the arrival of a new vampire/superhero/insert-genre-here movie. All that matters, and all that’s ever mattered, is that the film be made with some degree of skill and creativity. If I have that, I’m happy to engage with the film on its own terms.

Because that’s how you have to do it, right? Judging Bram Stoker’s Dracula, 30 Days of Night, Only Lovers Left Alive, and Let the Right One In by the same standards is foolish. The first question to ask is, what was the film trying to do? Then, you ask, did the film succeed? That’s what I keep thinking about with Sinners, Ryan Coogler’s newest film, and while it’s a little shaggy, it remains one of the best of the year.

It’s 1932, and the twins Smoke (Michael B. Jordan) and Stack (Michael B. Jordan) have returned to their Mississippi town of Clarksdale. During World War I, they learned how to kill. Afterward, in the employ of one Al Capone, they learned how to steal. They have come home, and their fame precedes them. With the giant pile of money the twins have brought back from Chicago, their plan is to create a juke joint, maybe the greatest juke joint.

They start by buying an old saw mill. The seller assures them that not only is he not Klan, but that the Klan hasn’t been active for many years. For Smoke and Stack, that’s probably the funniest joke they’ve heard in a while. Then, they hook up with their cousin Sammie (Miles Caton), an aspiring bluesman and a preacher’s son – and naturally the preacher fervently believes his son’s love of blues music could damn his soul.

After that, the twins recruit legendary bluesman Delta Slim (Delroy Lindo) to act as the evening’s entertainment, and field worker Cornbread (Omar Benson Miller) to handle bouncing. The husband and wife team Grace (Li Jun Li) and Bo (Yao) will handle signage and food for the evening. When the twins separate, Stack has a run-in with his old flame Mary (Hailee Steinfeld), where things don’t go well. Similarly, Smoke reconnects with his estranged wife Annie (Wunmi Mosaku). She reminds him that it was her magic that kept him safe for all those years. He reminds her that no magic kept their infant daughter safe. 

That night, the juke joint opens, and people come from miles around to enjoy Irish beer, Italian wine, and music straight from the Delta. One of the people attracted to the spectacle is…a little different. He is Remmick (Jack O’Connell), a man of long life and prodigious appetites. He is bound and determined to enter this safe space and make it highly unsafe.

I’d bet you money that studio executives will learn the wrong lessons from Sinners. They’ll immediately green light more vampire movies, which is a misreading of the film’s success. It’s not that we need more vampire movies, it’s that studios need to step back and let creatives cook. Here, Coogler isn’t just cooking, he’s making a damn feast. He’s made three movies, which are a look at the Black experience in the 1930s, a celebration of the power of music, and a siege movie with vampires. After giving the film a little space, I’m not sure those three concepts entirely fit together well, but in the moment, I didn’t care. 

Coogler’s film pulses with color, energy, and a raucous sound. Despite the presence of bloodsuckers, the film isn’t really about them. While it has more layers than an onion, one of the primary themes is about music. How it can say multiple things at once, how it can be a balm in a time of pain, and how it has power that transcends this mortal plane. Watch the musical number in the middle, which begins when Sammie takes the stage for the first time. His performance pierces the veil, and he’s joined by musicians from the past and future. The sequence is astonishing, one of the most incredible things I’ve ever seen in a movie. Don’t get me wrong, if you’re showing up to see vampires slaughter the living hell out of people, Coogler delivers. The gore gags are impressive, the horror is tight, and the tension ebbs and flows expertly.

As the screenwriter, Coogler digs into an awful lot of themes, but he never does it at the expense of his characters. He’s always clear about what drives the twins, Sammie, and everyone else. As a result, we care about these people, whether they’re living their lives, having a blast at the juke joint, or fleeing in terror from the undead. That leads into one of the concepts Coogler is fascinated by, the idea of a primarily Black space being destroyed by White interlopers. But complicating matters is how Coogler has written Remmick. It would be too easy for him to be a racist vampire. Instead, Remmick wants to bring everyone in the juke joint under his thrall and into a collective. But by doing that, he’d wipe out both their individuality and their culture. That sounds an awful lot like gentrification to me.

Want to see actors doing career best work? You’ll see it with this cast. The flashiest performances might be from Michael B. Jordan, and he delivers with customary skill.* About ten minutes or so into the film, I was able to tell which was Smoke and which was Stack purely by movement and body language alone. Jordan might be portraying twins, but he’s showing us two distinctive individuals. As Sammie, it’s impressive how Miles Caton holds his own against some acting heavyweights, considering that this is his first time appearing in a major film. I could go on about the cast, about how Delroy Lindo should again get an Oscar nomination or about how Hailee Steinfeld is practically breathing fire, but I think my favorite performance is Wunmi Mosaku as the mystic Annie. It’s a layered and natural piece of acting, and Mosaku shows us Annie’s profound grief, her love for her estranged husband, her emerging joy at the juke joint, and so much more. 

I’ve seen people online accuse Sinners of ripping off From Dusk Til Dawn. Sure, both movies feature criminals stuck in nightclubs and fending off vampires. As much as I dig FDTD, it’s ultimately a vampire movie – which is cool! Sinners is about vampires, about lost love, about the cosmic power of music, about minority groups coming into conflict, and so much more. We’re only in April and I’m comfortable calling this one of the best films of the year.

*At this point, the partnership between Coogler and Jordan should be considered to be on the same level as Scorsese and De Niro or Wes Anderson and Bill Murray.

Tim Brennan Movie Critic

Tim has been alarmingly enthusiastic about movies ever since childhood. He grew up in Boulder and, foolishly, left Colorado to study Communications in Washington State. Making matters worse, he moved to Connecticut after meeting his too-good-for-him wife. Drawn by the Rockies and a mild climate, he triumphantly returned and settled down back in Boulder County. He's written numerous screenplays, loves hiking, and embarrassed himself in front of Samuel L. Jackson. True story.