“Sinners”, directed by Ryan Coogler, begins in a church and, as its title suggests, deals with sin. Here, two forces—good and evil, one being faith and religion, the other demonic entities turned vampires—are set to face off: the classic horror formula tied to churches and religion. But this time, not everything goes by the book.
What makes Sinners compelling is its deviation from the norm—both in theme and form. It refuses to fully submit to the usual good-vs-evil, religion-vs-devil dichotomy, and it doesn’t closely resemble its genre peers either. While it borrows elements from the worlds of George Romero and Sam Raimi, it owes more—much more—to the sensibilities of Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez.
Set in 1932 Mississippi, the film follows two Black twin brothers, both World War I veterans (both played by Michael B. Jordan), who dream of creating a safe haven for Black joy and leisure amid deeply entrenched racism. They’re joined by their cousin Sammie, a guitar player, who, early in the film, is warned by a priest about the demonic power of the guitar.
The first hour serves as a somewhat drawn-out setup that could’ve been trimmed. But once everyone gathers at this makeshift venue, the film catches fire and doesn’t let the audience breathe. Beneath the chaos and bursts of violence, a searing story about racism unfolds—one that resists preachiness while offering gripping insight into America’s untold histories. Everything starts with skin colour: people are divided into Black and white, set starkly against each other. Then enters an Irish-born vampire (a nod to many Americans’ Irish ancestry), who becomes enchanted by Sammie’s music and follows him with an offer—to turn him into a vampire. In a striking scene where he urges Sammie to accept the transformation, he claims that in the world of vampires, skin colour no longer matters. And this is where the film smartly distances itself from the usual clichés of good and evil, challenging the viewer to think: how can a world built on religion be so soaked in prejudice, while the world of “evil” vampires appears free of it?
In the middle of all this, music becomes a core, driving force. The film is about music—it begins and ends with it. Music pulses through every moment of the film, intertwined with its soul, and deeply embedded in the life of the protagonist. In the opening scene, Sammie walks into the church carrying a broken guitar. The priest asks him to lay down his bloody guitar. By the end of the film, we return to that moment, only now we see that the very guitar the priest deemed demonic becomes Sammie’s salvation—he defeats the vampire with it. In the end, Sammie refuses the priest’s request and does not lay down his guitar.
After the credits begin to roll, the film continues for a few more minutes. Sixty years have passed. Sammie is now a celebrated musician, yet the vampire story lingers, as if to say the battle between good and evil is eternal. And in that eternal struggle, the film chooses not religion, but music—art—as the true path to redemption.
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