Sinners Review: When Vampires Said "We're Going Back to Our Roots" and Meant the Racist Ones 🩸

I watched Sinners with minimal expectations beyond "Michael B. Jordan plays twins" and "vampires in Jim Crow era," and that's already enough to get anyone's attention. I got a masterclass in atmospheric horror that made me want to check my family tree for any relatives who might've made questionable deals in Mississippi circa 1932.

The movie follows twin brothers Samuel and Elijah (both Michael B. Jordan because we live in an age of miracles and good CGI) who return to their hometown in the Jim Crow South to start fresh with a juke joint. You know, that classic American dream of bootstrapping yourself while vampires and racism are both trying to end your existence. Multitasking at its finest! 💀

The Setup: So You Think You Can Escape Your Past?

The twins are trying to leave their criminal past behind, which is adorable because this is a horror movie and nobody gets a clean slate, bestie. They arrive back home with plans and dreams, only to discover that their hometown has a bit of a vampire problem. Not the sparkly, play-baseball-in-thunderstorms kind either. These are the "we will drain you and your entire bloodline" type of vampires who apparently decided that the Jim Crow South wasn't horrible enough and wanted to add another layer of terror to the plate.

Because why have one existential threat when you can have two? 🙃

The vampires in this film are old-school brutal. No tragic backstories about lost love or vampire academies here. These creatures are presented as a pestilence, a curse, something that infects and corrupts. The way Coogler films them is genuinely unsettling - they even move wrong, like they're remembering how to be human but keep glitching out.

Everything Goes Sideways (Obviously)

The juke joint opens and things are actually going well for like 15 minutes of screen time before the vampires show up and start treating the establishment like an all-you-can-eat buffet. The horror escalates beautifully because you're dealing with monsters you can't report to any authorities (the authorities are also the problem, different kind of monsters so no go).

Samuel and Elijah have this really compelling dynamic where they're mirrors of each other but also complete opposites in how they handle crisis. One wants to fight, one wants to flee, and both realize that neither option is great when you're dealing with supernatural parasites AND systematic oppression. The way Michael B. Jordan plays off himself is honestly award-worthy. The man's literally acting circles around himself.

There's this one scene - I'm trying to be vague because spoilers - where the twins have to make a choice about who they're willing to sacrifice to survive, and it's genuinely gut-wrenching. You feel the weight of generations of survival tactics, of having to make impossible choices just to see another day. Heavy stuff wrapped in a vampire movie!

The Metaphor Is Metaphoring

Look, I'm not here to give you a dissertation on the symbolism, but the vampires-as-generational-trauma thing is pretty clear. They feed on blood, literally drain the life from communities, and perpetuate cycles of violence. Sound familiar? The movie doesn't beat you over the head with it, but it's there if you want to engage with it. If you don't, it's also just a really solid horror film about vampires terrorizing people in the 1930s South.

The period setting is chef's kiss impeccable. The costumes, the music, the absolute dread of existing while Black in Mississippi during Jim Crow - it's all rendered with this gorgeous but oppressive cinematography that makes you feel like you're suffocating. In a good way? If that's possible? 😅

Let's Talk About That Ending 👀

Without spoiling too much: the ending is bleak but hopeful in that very specific horror movie way where you're like "everyone's traumatized but at least some people survived?" The twins' journey comes full circle in a way that's both satisfying and devastating. You'll want to immediately rewatch the beginning after seeing the end because suddenly everything hits different.

There's also this beautiful/horrible moment where the community has to band together to fight the vampire threat, and you're watching them strategize using the same survival skills they've had to develop for dealing with human monsters. It's empowering and tragic simultaneously.

What Did We Learn?

That sometimes the monsters are literal, sometimes they're metaphorical, and most of the time they're both. That Michael B. Jordan should play twins in more movies. That Ryan Coogler can do literally any genre and make it sing. That vampire movies set in historical periods of intense racial violence are somehow more honest than half the period dramas we get.

Also that opening a business in your hometown is never as simple as it seems, especially when there's vampires. Or racism. Or both. Mostly both.

The Verdict

I'd rate this a solid 8.5/10. It's not perfect - some pacing issues in the middle act, and occasionally the metaphor gets a bit heavy-handed - but it's a genuinely fresh take on vampire horror that doesn't shy away from the uncomfortable parallels it's drawing. The performances are stellar, the atmosphere is thick enough to choke on, and the scares are earned rather than cheap jump-scares.

Watch it if you like: horror with substance, period pieces that don't sanitize history, vampires who are actually scary, Michael B. Jordan's face(s), films that make you think while also making you hide behind your hands.

Don't watch it if: you need your horror to be fun and light, you like sparkling vampires over horrific ones, or you think racism ended in the 1960s and would rather not think about it.

Now if you'll excuse me, I need to go sage my entire house and maybe invest in some garlic.

And therapy.

Definitely therapy. 🧄😰