Sinners (2025) – Review

It’s only taken him a few movies, but since Fruitville Station in 2013, Ryan Coogler has managed to become one of the most socially relevant and versatile directors working today. When he wasn’t resurrecting the Rockyverse into bold new territory with the franchise revitalising Creed, he was injecting some much needed diversity into the MCU with Black Panther and cleaning up at the box office while he did so. However, his latest project, Sinners, may very well be his most impressive accomplishment of all as Coogler ditches any and all established universes to take on the vampire genre and prove that the world of wide release black horror isn’t exclusively the domain of Jordan Peele.
However, it would be a Ryan Coogler film if he didn’t temper the traditional horror stuff with deep dives into the bitter history of life in America when your skin is a different colour. However, among the crimson spray of blood and the hiss of creatures in the night, Sinners finds its true bite in the form of 1930s blues and thus provides a musical backdrop that few films – especially horror ones – ever enjoy…

The year is 1932, the place is Mississipi and twin gangsters Smoke and Stack Moore have returned from Chicago with a truck full of booze, a wad of cash and a dream in their near identical heads to go into business by buying an old sawmill and opening up a juke joint for the local black community to enjoy after a day picking cotton. As the brothers go around, gathering up talent and staff to run their new enterprise, they meet up with their young cousin, Sammie and discover to their glee that he’s become an incredibly accomplished blues singer despite his young years and recruit him along with singer Pearline and boozey harmonica player Delta Slim to provide the entertainment.
While Stack builds the talent, Smoke takes care of the more practical matters such as food, but while the brothers both work hard to get things up and running for that night, both brothers end up running into old acquaintances they haven’t seen since leaving for Chicago. While Smoke meets up with his estranged wife Annie while getting her to cook food, he discovers that there’s still flames burning between them and similarly Stack find that old flame Mary still has feelings for him despite her successfully passing as white and marrying rich.
However, even though the night kicks off well and the joint is soon jumping, a chilling problem arises that neither of the Moore brothers could have possibly foreseen. It is said that some people throughout the ages possess voices so rich and so soulful, they have the ability to attract darker beings – the types of creature who stalks at night and drains the blood of its victims in order to create a community of its own. Before you know it, the Smoke/Stack boys and all their friends, loved ones and customers are in dire peril as they are beset by the type of gatecrashers a simple bouncer will be laughably ill equipped to deal with…

Obviously it’s early days yet, but I have a sneaking suspicion that when 2025 is all said and done, if Sinners isn’t the best film of the year, then at least it’s surely going to be the best horror film of the year. Simply put, despite a certain similarity to a certain other sweaty, bar-set, vampire movie that features criminal brothers (From Dusk Till Dawn, in case you missed the clue), Coogler’s debut into horror proves to be quite the original beast. For a start, the director is refreshingly savvy about the fact that if we’re going to give a shit when things take a decidedly supernatural turn, it’s imperative that we care about the characters before hand and this is where Coogler’s confidence serves him in good stead.
Simply put, Sinners is one of those movies that would be a totally engrossing experience even if blood smeared beings with demonically red pin pricks in their eyes and Fright Night gnashers in their mouth didn’t show up to cause all manner of carnage in the second half of the film. Coogler immerses us in the Jim Crow era of the deep south to the point where you can virtually feel the sun bake the nape of your neck and smell all the scents that come with it as his flawless cast create living breathing people that populate it. Leading the charge – twice – is Coogler’s regular muse Michael B. Jordan who certainly brings his A game when playing the dual roles of Smoke and Stack as he juggles their personalities (one cool, one fiery) in a way that’s never anything less than totally convincing, but it’s the soulful pipes of Miles Caton as the young and dangerously talented Sammie who yearns to use his talent to escape the drudgery of the cotton fields and taste life outside the Mississipi Delta that really sets the story on fire.

Similarly, even the supporting characters have rich, three dimensional stories that infuse them with life; the always dependable Wunmi Mosaku (no stranger to steamy period horror thanks the Lovecraft Country) brings inner and outer strength to Annie, Hailee Steinfeld’s one-eighth black Mary yearns to be with the people she wants to be with regardless of the risk and even old booze sodden musician Delta Slim (who sees Delroy Lindo continue his resurgence after seemingly appearing in 68% of all movies made during the 90s) is far more than just a side character to pad out the bloodshed when it happens.
Even Jack O’Connell’s Irish immigrant turned drooling bloodsucker has loftier ideals than just drain victims of blood as Coogler’s script keeps the basic, vampire lore intact, but turns the steadily growing undead infection into something farvmore intriguing as the fanged Remmick claims to want to create the community that white folks won’t let the blacks have, no matter how close knit they are. It’s dizzyingly meaty stuff that’s a joy to sink your incisors into – but while Sinners is absolutely bursting at the seams with ideas and racial commentary, it’s the film’s approach to music that makes it so devastatingly remarkable. Teaming with his frequent collaborator, Ludwig Göransson, the duo make the sounds of black music of the 30s absolutely integral to the story and it eventually results in one of the most remarkable sequences I’ve seen in years. I won’t spoil it for you, but it’s breathtaking that one of the most genuinely transcendent moments in modern cinema history can be found in a horror film and you’ll definitely know it when it happens.

I know that the horror genre has managed to score a massive amount mainstream respectability over the last fifteen years, but it’s still a thrill that a movie about flesh ripping vampires can be so moving, meaningful and downright powerful thanks to a director who knows how to make something so original out of something potentially so overused.
Sexy, shocking, and incredibly spellbinding, Coogler once again adds his personal touch to a seemingly well worn subject (boxing movies, superheroes, vampires) and turns it into something utterly unexpected. Part gangster film, part vampire horror, part commentary on the African American experience, you wouldn’t think that such a film could carry off a vampire song and dance routine or two post credit sequences – but that just shows how unbelievably talented Coogler really is to make Sinners so horribly heavenly.
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