While the idea of the vampire has been an omnipresent cultural fascination since Bram Stoker’s “Dracula” debuted in 1897, there’s been a noted fixation on the monster in recent years. Long gone are the days of the “Twilight” series’ codifying of the vampire as a sexless Mormon twinkle in the sun.
Robert Eggers’ new take on the classic “Nosferatu,” the unabashedly queer “Interview with the Vampire” TV series, Ariane Louis-Seize’s underrated indie “Humanist Vampire Seeking Consenting Suicidal Person,” Pablo Larraín’s satire on fascism in “El Conde” — the vampire is a malleable creature, with countless artists imposing their own perspective on it as it takes on new forms.
Ryan Coogler was next up to bat. In the “Black Panther” director’s first original film since his 2013 drama “Fruitvale Station,” Coogler was eager to take a swing at the material from a Black perspective. In an interview with LeBron James, he spoke about the origin point for this new venture.
“For me, the movie started with my relationship with my uncle who is from Mississippi,” Coogler said. “I had already made a film about the Bay with ‘Fruitvale,’ I was making a movie about Philly, I made a couple of movies about Wakanda, and now I’m coming back home in a different way. I’m looking at the American South, which is, outside of the continent of Africa, where Black people call home.”
The final result of that ideation, “Sinners,” is a total blast. A Depression-era period film sweating blood in the deep South, Coogler’s mixture of classic vampire mythology with African myth and the mystical power of music gives the audiences something to snack on. While occasionally stumbling over the scale of the story it’s aiming for, the film delivers on a “From Dusk Till Dawn”-esque action-horror filled with moments that will make you scream and shiver.
Taking place over the course of a hot summer day in 1937 Mississippi, twin brothers Smoke and Stack (both Michael B. Jordan) return to their rural hometown to start a club after a job gone wrong in Chicago. Reuniting to throw a party with their musical prodigy cousin, Sammie (newcomer Miles Caton), Smoke and Stack’s respective old flames Mary (Hailee Steinfeld) and Annie (Wunmi Mosaku), and drunkard blues musician Delta Slim (Delroy Lindo). When set upon by a trio of Klan-affiliated vampires led by the chaotic Remmick (Jack O’Connell), the group must learn to survive as their enemy grows stronger and resources run thin.
Coogler’s script is as much about music and culture as it is about blood suckers. Aside from Chicago blues’ legend Buddy Guy’s cameo later on in the film, there are two major musical sequences in the film. The first, headed by Caton’s banjo and heavenly voice, captures the evolution of Black music throughout history as the club bounces to anachronistic depictions of ancient African drum players alongside modern DJs scrubbing discs. The second is headed by O’Connell as he leads a swath of vampires in an Irish riverdance to taunt our remaining leads into conforming to a culture that is not their own.
The two sequences remain entertaining (Coogler pulls out IMAX cameras to capture Aakomon Jones’ incredible choreography) while telling the troubling story of the American immigrant. One can choose to subsume themselves fully into a homogenous culture, therefore sacrificing some sense of cultural identity for ease of movement in a hostile environment, or they can refuse, struggling against a system that would prefer to see them dead than different.
A strong thematic throughline like that and a cast of committed performances, especially with Jordan dripping charisma through both of his dual roles, makeup for some underdeveloped side plots that end somewhat anticlimactically. If you want something to make you scream in the moment while giving you material to chew on for days afterwards, “Sinners” is the picture for you.
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