I'm a huge vampire fan. Nosferatu was my favorite movie of last year, and the vampire subgenre is easily my favorite among those categorized under the broader horror label. The dark, gothic, romantic appeal of the vampire is something I find myself constantly drawn to—whether it's a classic tale like Dracula or something more modern and aligned with contemporary sensibilities, like... well, like Sinners.

So, it is with a heavy heart that I must report I walked away from Sinners not absolutely loving it.

I did enjoy my experience with the film and do plan to revisit it in the future—maybe then I'll really love it. But at the end of the day, the film lands in the same category as 2022's The Batman for me: a movie that, on paper, seems like something I would absolutely love given my sensibilities and its reception, but ultimately left me feeling a little underwhelmed despite my initial anticipation.

Sinners is about twin brothers Smoke and Stack, both played by Michael B. Jordan, opening up a new juke joint in Clarksdale, Mississippi in 1932. However, their plans of opening the place up with a bombastic party get interrupted when they are beset by a trio of vampires. 

I think the main positives I walked away from the film were the spectacular performances by the cast and the phenomenal music. 

On the topic of music, one cannot talk about this movie without mentioning it. The reason for the vampires' attention being drawn toward the twins' juke joint is because, in the world of the film, song has the power to unite the spirits of the living and the dead, past, present, and future. This attracts the main antagonist of the film, Remmick played by Jack O'Connell, to the joint due to the blues song played by Miles Caton's Sammie being one of these aforementioned songs. Due to this central element of the plot being so tied to music, you need a spectacular soundtrack to back up the events of the film. You need music that makes us believe that it's so good it brings back the dead, and fortunately, the score by Ludwig Göransson is amazing as to be expected by the now legendary composer. While not quite the crown jewel in Göransson's filmography as that title still belongs to his superb work on Oppenheimer, his work brings this film to life in a way that just wouldn't be possible otherwise. The blues-infused soundtrack adds a melancholic yet high-energy atmosphere to the film that is perfect for its subject matter.

As I previously stated the performances are spectacular in the film. Michael B. Jordan is the obvious stand out as both of his characters, bringing a unique disposition to each of the brothers that always makes them feel like entirely different people despite being played by the same actor. Smoke, the older of the two, is more methodical and calculated and is situated by the film to ostensibly be the protagonist as his journey is central to the story of Sinners. The film begins and ends with his journey starting and finishing, while Stack's journey takes a little bit of a backseat. The film's cast is rounded out by the excellent Jack O'Connell whose villainous Remmick is a joy to watch on screen as well as a litany of side characters all expertly performed. Delroy Lindo's Delta Slim is a particular highlight for me as the drunk blues player steals every scene he's in. This is all to mention nothing of the twins' love interests in the film who also get a respectable amount of screen time each. Those being Wunmi Mosaku's Annie and Hailee Steinfeld's Mary. They both deliver great performances that bounce well off Jordan's dual roles, each of them reflecting the men they love in interesting ways as their dispositions are eerily similar to that of Smoke and Stack's contrasting personalities. Smoke and Annie share a world-weary and serious attitude while Stack and Mary both showcase their playful and somewhat lackadaisical personalities throughout their many scenes together.

Those two aspects of the film are definitely for me the highlights as I think they elevate the film to a level that other films otherwise leave me wanting. However, the main thing I walked away with Sinners left wanting was the writing and story.

I think Sinners has a lot of wonderful ideas and has a lot to say but I think despite the undeniably compelling ideas, it falls a little flat for me in execution. Ironically enough, I think I enjoyed the film more in the first hour before the horror of the experience invades our cast of characters' lives. That's not to say that the vampires of the film are disappointing, I think the effects work bringing them to life are genuinely good, it's just the film's tightness starts to fall apart in the second act for me. 

The main thing I really was kind of mixed on was the ambiguity of the film. To be clear, it is not an intentional vagueness more of just oversights in the writing of the film. Contradictions in the lore of their vampires, a muddiness in character journeys, repeating of exposition, and a somewhat discombobulating approach to expressing its themes left me a little disappointed exiting the theater. I think the film presents a lot of ideas and thoughts about America and its treatment of racial minorities in the South, but I don't have a clear grasp of specifically what the film is "about". There's a lot it has to say, but what does the film represent? What is it specifically saying about these things? I don't know, it's a bit murky overall. 

I think for all vampire fiction, you need to narrow down specifically what the vampire in your art represents. The vampire needs to stand for something and be representative of something that explicitly states what the themes of your piece are. In Nosferatu, Orlok represents moral and physical decay as well as lust. Orlok represents the ease with which we fall into the arms of evil and the mistakes we end up making because of that, the film ends off with the message that the only way to leave this world a better place and be at peace with ourselves is to accept our mistakes and the reasons we fell into them to heal. 

I don't know what Remmick represents in this film or what the vampire is. I've heard online discussions of the vampire being used to represent cultural vampirism in the film or that Remmick is a colonizer, and while I think that's an interesting idea and a good take. I don't fully know if I agree or if I do it has to be in acknowledgment that there are some issues with the idea. 

If Remmick is supposed to represent cultural vampirism as the implications of the hive mind of the vampires are supposed to represent..how come we don't see any of that on screen? Remmick and his brood play songs, how come when they don't play songs that appropriate some of the cultures he secondhandedly gains knowledge of through turning some of the juke joint's inhabitants? Beyond speaking in Chinese after turning Yao's Bo Chow, he doesn't display anything like that and makes everyone dance to and sing an Irish jig with him. That could lead to us think maybe he is representative of colonialism..but then there are issues with that. Remmick is Irish and eventually states how much he hates the men who invaded his homeland and forced Catholicism upon him and his people. It's just muddy, and not clear to me what specifically Coogler is trying to say with Remmick or the film as a whole.

The last film I reviewed here was Novocaine, and that review was a bit more positive than this one overall and that doesn't quite sit with me right. Overall, I enjoyed Sinners a lot more than Novocaine and I do recommend that you go out and watch this film because it is really good and I do think you will have a good time with it. I just had some pretty high expectations going in which was in stark contrast to the attitude I went into Novocaine with. I was excited for Sinners and I think going in with those sky-high expectations maybe shot myself in the foot when watching it because I ended up wanting more than what I ended up getting.