I Watch Films: Sinners

 

Sinners (2025)

It’s 1932 in Mississippi, and the Smokestack twins Elija and Elias Moore (Michael B Jordan and Michael B Jordan) have returned after several years working for gangsters in Chicago. They buy an old sawmill intending to make it a juke joint – a bar, dance hall, music venue etc for the African American community. Most of that community work as cotton pickers. They begin by collecting their younger cousin Sammie, a singer and guitarist, despite warnings from his preacher father that blues music is a sin.

The three collect a variety of others; Delta Slim a pianist, Grace and Bo Chow, the Chinese shopkeepers to bring supplies, Cornbread as doorman, Smoke’s wife Annie as a cook. (Annie does hoodoo which she thinks is how the twins made it safely through WW1 and their time running with the mob; Smoke thinks it doesn’t work as their infant daughter died). They also run into Mary, Stack’s ex-girlfriend; the two split up because she’s too white and the locals didn’t like it.

Meanwhile Remick, an Irish vampire, is pursued by Choctaw vampire hunters; finds himself at a cabin owned by local couple who support the ku klux klan, and takes shelter there; the Choctaw leaving as it’s almost sundown, Remmick turns the couple into vampires.

The juke joint is popular, with Sammie’s music transcendentally magical, evoking that of other performers, past, present and future, with them appearing throughout the dance. Sammie, having had cunnilingus explained to him by one of his cousins earlier in the day, get together with singer Pearline to try it. Smoke and Stack discover that the locals don’t have much hard cash, instead having wooden nickels and other company scrip, which will be a problem in the long term. In the short term there’s a problem when some white people want to come in and are politely refused; as it happens they’re Remmick and the other vampires.

The film turns into vampire attack. Mary is turned and bites Stack; Smoke discovers her and shoot her but she survives to run away. Many of the patrons flee, only to be turned. Stack revives and turns, only to be repelled and flee when Annie deploys pickled garlic. The vampires cannot enter without an invitation; Annie the hoodoo practitioner prepares defences. Unexpectedly the vampires have a group consciousness, though they maintain their individuality. Remmick explains what he wants; as an immortal he’s cut off from his past, but Sammie’s playing can bring that back. Remmick offers them immortality and strength from persecution, telling them that the klan intend to burn the joint at daybreak, killing anyone there. When this doesn’t work Remmick threatens Grace’s daughter back in town; she invites them in and there is a long and complex vampire fight. Sammie survives to interrupt his father’s service; Smoke stays to shoot it out with the klansmen when they come.

This is an excellent film of life in 1930s Mississippi, it’s a cool vampire film, it’s a fun action film, it’s a film that has a lot to say about music, about timelessness, about keeping a culture as a minority in society. It has something to say about crime and violence, about family, even about being an identical twin. Does it quite manage to tie all those elegantly together? Perhaps not, despite it’s lengthy attempts.

Watch This: Superb supernatural horror film
Don’t Watch This: A lot of preparing for a party then enormous change of tone into violence