Sinners (15)

Twin brothers Smoke and Stack are determined to leave the upheaval of the past where it belongs. The siblings return to their hometown of Clarksdale in the south and Smoke and Stack quickly discover that an insidious evil has taken root among their friends and neighbours. Creatures of the night led by the menacing Remmick, who possess the power to rejuvenate the sickly with one bite, lurk in the shadows. Smoke and Stack lead the resistance against this insidious infection.

LondonNet Film Review

Sinners (15) Film Review from LondonNet

In Bram Stoker’s Dracula, the eponymous count hears howling wolves in the valley beneath his castle and is momentarily lost in reverie. “Listen to them, the children of the night. What music they make!” he enthuses, eyes gleaming. Music seduces in Black Panther and Creed director Ryan Coogler’s stylish vampire yarn, which explicitly harnesses the transcendental power of instruments and the human voice to connect people from different cultures across space and time…

In Sinners, that blurring of temporal boundaries is realised with verve in a standout sequence shot inside a crowded 1930s juke joint. Characters from the past, present and future magically converge on the makeshift dancefloor and the heat generated by this rhapsodic, gyrating throng appears to set fire to the barn, reducing the wooden structure to fiery embers. Similarly, fanged menaces preface an attack on human prey by raising their voices in choral salutation while their leader performs an energetic Irish jig.

Coogler’s sweat-drenched and sexy vision elicits seamlessly melded performances from regular collaborator Michael B Jordan as twins, who fend off the insidious evil that has taken root among their neighbours. The script peddles familiar mythology – stakes through the heart, garlic, holy water, sunlight-induced combustion – against the backdrop of racial segregation in Jim Crow and Prohibition-era Mississippi, swathed in a soundtrack that honours the rich history of the blues. Jump scares are predictable, as is the final stand-off between bloodsucking creatures and humans a la From Dusk Till Dawn that must be resolved before darkness yields to a cock’s crow.

Sharp-suited brothers Smoke and Stack (Jordan) return to their hometown of Clarksdale, swathed in notoriety from their exploits in Chicago as small fish in the big pond of Al Capone’s criminal underworld. The siblings intend to open a juke joint with the help of their young cousin Sammie (Miles Caton), local medicine woman Annie (Wunmi Mosaku), pianist Delta Slim (Delroy Lindo) and bouncer Cornbread (Omar Benson Miller). Stack is awkwardly reunited with Mary (Hailee Steinfeld), the sweetheart he left behind. As night falls, vampire Remmick (Jack O’Connell) and his bloodthirsty acolytes Bert (Peter Dreimanis) and Joan (Lola Kirke) arrive at the joint’s front door and ask to be invited in.

Sinners bulges at impressively stitched seams with ideas as Coogler injects fresh blood into a staple of the horror genre but his film does feel oversaturated, even with an indulgent 138-minute running time. Mirror images of Jordan are easily distinguishable by fashion colour schemes (red and blue) and digital witchcraft allows the brothers to seamlessly interact with each other and co-stars in elaborately staged set pieces. Emotionally, the picture is anaemic even with a pithy epilogue distinguished by an appearance from Chicago blues trailblazer Buddy Guy but when Coogler’s joint is jumpin’, it’s mighty intoxicating.

– Jo Planter