Sinners

Hey everyone, and welcome. Today, we will be talking about the film Sinners. Spoilers ahead. Fun Fact: The idea of this movie was sparked from the memory of Ryan Coogler's uncle playing him Blues music and telling him stories of living in Mississippi. After his uncle passed, he would play blues records, and he looked at it differently and felt like he was conjuring his uncle. This film came out in 2025 and stars Michael B Jordan x2, Miles Caton, and Wunmi Mosaku, and was directed by Ryan Coogler. So, without further ado, let's get right into it.

Sinners follows twins Smoke and Stack, who come home to the Mississippi Delta trying to start their lives over after being involved with the gangs in Chicago in the 1930s. Everything is going well until they run into some vampires who are set on turning everyone to form a new community.

Sinners is a genre-bending vampire movie. It has similar vibes to Candyman, Puss in Boots: The Last Wish, or Fruitvale Station.

I have seen all the movies Ryan Coogler has directed and wasn't planning on stopping anytime soon. The movie sparked my interest as well by all its layers, since it's a mixture of supernatural and historical elements. Theres so much influence from actual historical events that I love to see brought up in this film and i think its smart to present it this way because not everyone wants to watch a purely historical film so Ryan made a horror/supernatural film that also added in bits of history in a very respectable way that felt that it should be in the film but also if you didn’t know about the Delta, you would be inclined to learn more. This is so important to me because information is out there, and some people consume it in traditional ways, but some people like nontraditional ways like this, which gives them an intro and may encourage them to explore more. The cast is stacked with so many familiar faces, and Coogler pulled in frequent collaborators to give us a masterpiece.

I love how they made sure to include the vampire lore, and I thought Annie was the perfect person to explain this. With Annie's experience with Folk Magic, she had some type of knowledge of vampires, even though she thought they weren’t real, and knew their weaknesses. I love how there were a lot of traditional weapons against vampires like garlic, a stake through the heart, silver, and of course, sunlight. I'm glad they included this, but also glad Annie was there to give them a fighting chance. Annie also ran a small shop where she dabbled in rootwork to help the community. She created a magical pouch to protect Smoke, which I thought was just some random addition, but come to find out it's something called mojo hands, which was used to protect against evil spirits.

I'm always shocked when I see an actor do so well in their first major role. Miles Caton plays preacher boy, and he did so well, not only with the acting but the singing as well. I was impressed that he was so versatile, acting and singing, and was able to hold his own against some really good actors. I'm interested to see where the future takes him, but I'm glad that he was able to showcase his skills, and he really added to this movie.

Every time I hear something is a horror film, I'm like, let me check it out, because some movies to me aren't really horror. This film definitely had those horror vibes that felt very unexpected, but in a good way. I loved being surprised by the horror elements in this film because it's one thing to watch something and be like Oh, that would be scary vs. omg, that made me jump out of my seat a bit. I loved the addition of horror elements to make this film really get my heart rate up and make me feel tense.

With Sammie's relationship with his dad, we see him trying to make Sammie choose between blues and church, and there is no type of leeway for a mutual agreement. I felt this was perfect to show how you can do both, you can do what you love, but also respect the religion you want to. You shouldn't feel pressured to choose one when in your heart you know that you care about both. It's also interesting to me because, for black people, I feel like making blues music and going to church were both used to escape the realities of life. That relationship also shows me how parents push away their kids because they want them to conform to what they believe instead of letting them carve their own path. Give them some space to figure themselves out, which in this movie only took taking on a horde of vampires.

The setting in the Deep South was cool, more specifically the Delta, which weaved history into the story in a beautiful way. The brothers fought in WW1 and after that made their way to Chicago, which is something a lot of black vets did after not finding success in the Delta post the war, and they even mentioned they met Capone. Charley Patton, who is the father of Delta blues, is mentioned, but he was also born in the Delta, which is considered the home of the blues. Grace and Bo are Delta Chinese, which was a group that moved to the delta after the war, and they opened grocery stores and fell in between the cracks of segregation, so they could sell to the whites and the blacks, but were never seen equal to their white counterparts and seemed to align more with black people. One thing of note about Delta Chinese is that they would have a black store and then a white store across the street, and in the film, we see Bo at the black store and his wife across the street running what I believe was the white store. Choctaw natives are seen, which could pay homage to the fact that they were the natives to that land, of course, before the white people came to steal it, no surprise that their goal was to drive out a white demon. Even showing the importance of black churches in the community, which were run by black people to help protect their visitors from the traumas of living in an oppressive society. One thing about blacks in the south is that being poor and discriminated against didn't mean that they weren't creative, and they used their experiences to make art. I’m sure there is some I missed, but these really stood out to me.

The film shows, of course, the racism that is so deeply ingrained in the South with the KKK. One thing that I found out after this film was that the location the brothers bought for this bar was a sawmill, which was used in the past by the KKK to kill black people. It is so fitting that in the end, the sawmill is where so many KKK members get killed by Smoke. I'm glad the film included that revenge on some people wanting to set him up and kill more black people, but also as a constant reminder that we should still be aiming to eradicate the KKK.

Remmick’s character partly felt like a metaphor for slave owners in the South, who were the cause of death for so many black people. Like, he brought in so many black people to his group, and they all died except one who was able to escape. He also seems reminiscent of all the white people who stole music from black artists they knew were great. The Vampires love Sammy's music and they want him because of it, which has been done in the past, and they want him to become a vampire, but because he doesn't want to, they feel the next best option is to either force him to become a vampire or kill him.  It's like no was not an answer, either you give it to us or we will take it. They want black culture, not to respect it but to steal it and control it. We see similar things like this in films like Ma Rainey's Black Bottom, and we see it today in real life with black artists trying to reclaim music that was popularized by us, like Beyoncé releasing dance and country albums.

We see Stack and Mary survive at the end, and first I was like, why did preacher boy let them live after what he experienced? I realized that they might not be bad now, or as bad, because they were most likely manipulated by Remmick until he was killed. I liked them together because even tho it was not a safe relationship, they loved each other.

My favorite part of the film was the music overall, and especially the scene where Sammie, aka Preacher Boy, is playing, and we see his music connecting to music across time. It was a beautiful scene and cool to see all the crossovers of different music. Music played an important part in the history of The Delta, and even though black people were oppressed, they created blues, which had songs influenced by work and suffering, but the music often transcended that. There is a poster that is reminiscent of painting the Sugar Shack by Ernie Barnes, which showed people dancing to blues music, which was also the cover to a Marvin Gaye album. In the movie, we see that replicated before stuff really hits the fan. We see this throughout the film with how much the music brings these people who aren't in the perfect situation together, but more so in the scene where preacher boy is walking through a musical timeline, which further drives home how music transcends even time. Director Ryan Coogler and Composer Ludwig Goransson met at USC and have become frequent collaborators, and I think they make magic when working together. It's like because of their friendship, Ludwig knows the perfect music to pair with the scene that Ryan has put forth. I was amazed how I loved not only the music from Preacher Boy and the other performers inside the juke joint, but also the vampire's music was kind of catchy too. I think often times in movies, music can fade in the background, and when Ludwig and Ryan work together, they find a way to make the music stand out, but also not distract from what's going on, and I love that there is this nice balance. Music was such an important part of this film, and it definitely made me love the film even more, and made the emotions high, and made me ready to get the soundtrack after.

Sinners is a masterpiece from Ryan Coogler. I respect Coogler as a director, and he always makes these films that just have me glued to my seat and my eyes locked on the screen. The acting, the story, the music, and the outfits are all great, and it's such an enjoyable movie. There's probably some messages I didn't even get, but you might watch and find something cool he also added in the film.