First Impression: Sinners

Every so often a pundit will declare that the bottom has fallen out of the market when it comes to vampire films. In honesty, the concept is ludicrous, the 19 years this blog has been running would have ground to a halt and yet I am still finding vampire films to watch and review. At the low budget end, the market never seems to dry up at all. At the higher budget end, especially with regards those released into cinema, there may be a slowdown from time to time. However, at that end of the spectrum we have been blessed over the last few years with several high-quality cinema releases and Sinners is the latest.

Directed by Ryan Coogler, Sinners is set in the Mississippi Delta area during the 1930s and there is a touch of From Dusk Till Dawn in the format with the film following a crime/social drama first part of the film until things go crazy with vampires in the second part. Both sections are really well done. However, there is also a knowingness with regards this and the film deliberately drops in a taste of the vampire section within the first section.

An introductory piece tells us of musicians so talented that their music is spiritually transportative and can summon spirits from the past and future but also it can attract evil. The film then has a flashforward, past the events of the core movie. A vehicle pulls in front of a chapel, gospel music coming from within, and the driver staggers to the church. He is Sammie Moore (Miles Caton) and his clothes are blood stained and ripped, he has vicious claw wounds across his face and he grips to the neck of a broken guitar. His father holds him but rather than find help tries to have the boy renounce the sins of (non-church) music, assuming the debauchery that has led him to this state.

Miles Caton as Sammie

Cut back a day and Sammie’s cousins, the Smokestack twins – both Smoke and Stack played by Michael B. Jordan – have returned to the Delta. They had got out, survived the First World War and have been running with gangsters in Chicago. They buy an old sawmill from Hogwood (David Maldonado, From Dusk Till Dawn: The Series). The money (and the booze they also hold; Irish beer and Italian wine) has been lifted from the crime gangs and they intend to set up their own jukejoint. Sammie has gone to the cottonfields early and filled his quota and spends the day with them. He is to be part of the entertainment, playing blues under the moniker Preacher Boy – Miles Caton has a fantastic voice.

the Smokestack twins

The first part of the film sees the set up for an opening that night. It also goes into the personal lives of Stack and his ex, Mary (Hailee Steinfeld), who passes white and happens to be in town as she has just buried her mother. Likewise, Smoke reconnects with Annie (Wunmi Mosaku, Citadel, Lovecraft Country & Deadpool & Wolverine), his estranged wife and a Hoodoo practitioner. This part of the film absolutely showcases the high-quality acting and screenplay.

Jack O'Connell as Remmick

However, we also see Remmick (Jack O'Connell), running towards a house, his skin smoking in the sun. He begs shelter from the occupants, noticing the Klan robes in the house. He says that a group of Choctaw are after him. They are sceptical but consent and, with him ensconced inside, the First Nation vampire hunters arrive – they are given a frosty welcome but still warn the wife as they retreat, because the sun is due to set. It’s too late, her husband has been turned whilst this went on and she is next… Later Remmick is drawn to Sammie as he plays, and the vampires then, eventually, lay siege to the jukejoint.

bloodied

Importantly, within the lore, is the need to be invited in and that a single bite turns and this happens pretty quickly. There is a hive mind that the vampires share, with Remmick at the centre, and they are described as having their souls locked in their bodies with killing them a release of the soul. Sunlight, staking and garlic are efficient against them – and Annie is the font of the lore, given her beliefs. The film has a fantastic nod to The Thing (1982), which I won’t spoil but you’ll know it when you see it and Sammie’s jukejoint performance actually brought a conceptual feel of a theme in Only Lovers Left Alive but, for me, this did it in a superior way.

Wunmi Mosaku as Annie

Michael B. Jordan stands out as the twins and Wunmi Mosaku offers a particularly strong performance too. Indeed, the whole cast was blisteringly strong, but as well as superb performances and some lovely cinematography, this had a soundtrack that just wouldn’t let up. With Delta Blues, some Traditional Irish and a tad of Gospel in there, the soundtrack is a massively important element of the film – to the point that the film touches on being part of the musical genre at some points. It has themes around the black experience and racism, a critique of equality issues through a version of the white saviour trope but, most of all, it is a darn fine film. As always, there’ll be a full review once the home media is released.

The imdb page is here.