In an age of blockbuster remakes and sequels, it’s always refreshing when an original concept lands on the big screen with a $100 million budget.
Black Panther and Creed director Ryan Coogler has certainly earned it after his billion dollar box office reputation, as he once again teams up with Michael B Jordan for an incredibly ambitious new picture that holds a rare 99 per cent on Rotten Tomatoes.
The only film shot on IMAX cameras to release in 2025 is a steamy, smoky vampire horror set in 1930s Mississippi – complete with a catchy blues track from Coogler and Christopher Nolan film composer Ludwig Göransson.
Sinners is very much a film of two halves. The first is a grounded, beautifully filmed drama about twin brothers Smoke and Stack (both played by the ever-charismatic Jordan), who return to their hometown of Clarksdale to open a music joint for the local black community.
With their golden smiles and loaded pistols, these loveable rogues recruit newcomer Miles Caton’s Sammie Moore, the son of a preacher man, who can play the steel guitar as though he’s made a Faustian pact.
As the venue’s opening night kicks off the second half, Coogler leaves behind the realistic period drama, taking on an experimental fusion of genres rarely seen in modern cinema. And then come the vampires. Jack O’Connell’s Remmick (who may be the actual Devil) gets his disciples (noticeably all white at first) dancing to his country and Irish tunes in the pale moonlight. As such, it soon becomes apparent that there’s a lot of depth to the racial themes previously explored (without any woke grandstanding) in films such as Jordan Peele’s Get Out and Us. In fact, Sinners could have been another one of his horrors, as it soon becomes apparent that the white vampires wish to be welcomed in (as is the folklore) to this black space, to suck the blues players dry.
Musical appropriation is just one of the ideas in this rich tome, which jumps between deep reflective symbolism and Shaun of the Dead B-movie bloody violence as the survivors take on the drooling hoards. It’s far from perfect—some of the action sequence outcomes don’t make sense—but this is a bold new film with plenty of teeth, one that will keep you chewing on its many thoughts long after the horror thrills have left you.
Sinners hits UK cinemas on Friday.
