Sinners: A Bloody Good Time
by Jasmine Edwards
Before we begin, let me get a single complaint off my chest. As an identical twin myself, I am tired of Hollywood’s tendency to allow one actor to play two separate people. Twins are not mirror image clones of each other. Moreover, this annoying casting choice feels lazy; why not find twins suitable for the roles? It also wastes a CGI budget and feels like a thinly veiled attempt to just let an actor flex their skills.
That being said, Michael B. Jordan certainly did flex in Sinners (2025)—emotionally and physically. Director Ryan Coogler also cast Jordan in his 2013 directorial debut, Fruitvale Station, as well as the Creed trilogy and Marvel Studios’ Black Panther duology. So I can understand why the director would want Michael B. Jordan to return for the genre-blending mayhem that is Sinners.
Stack and Smoke, the “Smokestack twins” played by Michael B. Jordan, are military veterans and gangsters. After running amok in Chicago, the brothers head back home to the Mississippi Delta in order to make music and money in more familiar territory. Set in 1932, Sinners establishes an incredibly intimate historical placement, describing American history through personal struggle instead of gimmicky news articles or radio broadcasts. Stack and Smoke lament Jim Crow laws, we see “Whites Only” signage, and Black men and women pick cotton on plantations. They also pay for their drinks with a mix of dollars and plantation money, a vital detail that Coogler took care not to overlook.
Coogler also highlights the intersectional identities that filled Mississippi during that time period. Although it predominantly focuses on Black culture, Sinners includes the Chow family, a Chinese couple (Li Jun Li and Yao) and their daughter (Helena Hu) who work as shopkeepers. We briefly see Native American vampire hunters from the Chocktaw tribe. Additionally, Coogler shines a light on the religious divide as Christianity overtakes Voodoo in the small town.
But what I love most is that he does this through interpersonal dynamics. Miss Annie (Wunmi Mosaku), a Hoodoo priestess and Smoke’s estranged wife, doesn’t have many customers left for whom to conjure. Meanwhile, Sammie (Miles Caton), the twins’ cousin, shirks his responsibilities to his pastor father. Sammie wants to play the guitar and sing blues—a sin that his father warns him will bring the Devil knocking.
Maybe Dad would change his tune if he heard Sammie play. Sammie’s first real performance, the one set in the twins’ juke joint, is an immaculate scene from start to finish. While he sings, he calls forth spirits from both the past and future. Suddenly, traditional African dancers, rappers, DJs, and twerking girls join a crowd from the 1930s. I was absolutely stunned by this celebration of Black culture through the ages.
In fact, the musical scenes are the most striking in Sinners. While it’s technically a horror/thriller, you get a lot more singing and dancing than you’d typically find in those genres. Pearline’s (Jayme Lawson) solo is mesmerizing and sensual, used at precisely the right time as Stack’s ex-girlfriend Mary (Hailee Steinfeld) succumbs to darkness. Slim’s harmonica is joyous but a bit antiquated to the newer blues crowd, tapping into his role as the comic as well as the symbol of a time passed but not quite forgotten. And throughout the film, the audio mixing and Ludwig Göransson’s outstanding soundtrack give viewers an omnipresent throughline of music and noise, guiding our emotions exactly where they need to go.
The vampires even use music to build camaraderie before their song turns creepy and possessive. Even the villain Remmick’s (Jack O’Connell) traditional Irish Riverdance, meant to evoke jubilation, is terrifying because it illustrates his utmost confidence that he can turn everyone—unless they’d prefer to die trying to escape.
Sinners reminds you that it isn't a capital-M Musical, of course, with total carnage. While a couple of the jump scares are low-hanging fruit, they’re still effective. And perhaps what’s most frightening is not the torn flesh or fabulous makeup effects, but Remmick’s motivation for wanting to trap everyone’s souls for eternity and assimilate them into his group.
Overall, Sinners is awesome, it’s introspective, and it’s bloody as hell. We get a visually exciting and emotionally powerful sequence in which an absolutely jacked Michael B. Jordan kills KKK members. The romantic relationships are soft and sexy alike, while the familial relationships are properly comforting and complex. And Remmick, while a somewhat typical villain, is at least a culturally relevant vampire who isn’t just after his next meal.
I’m happy to see Sinners join AMC’s Interview with the Vampire and Robert Eggers’ Nosferatu in our recent vampire renaissance. I’m also stoked to see Ryan Coogler exploring the horror genre, and I can’t wait to take a huge bite out of whatever he (and presumably Michael B. Jordan) are planning next.