As a horror fan, “Sinners” left me with that weird double-edged feeling of a grin because I’d just watched blood-soaked mayhem on 70 mm, and a sigh because, yep, another third act collapses under the weight of its own fangs. Ryan Coogler’s Deep-South, blues-drenched vampire opera shoots for the sky, lands on the porch roof, and then sort of dangles there, dripping. Yet even while the movie misses plenty of its punches, it proves something more exciting. It shows that Black filmmakers aren’t just renting space in the genre anymore; they’re knocking down walls, remodeling the whole haunted house, and painting it a shade the multiplex has never seen.
Coogler stuffs his film with luscious period detail, Michael B. Jordan playing dueling twin gangsters, Delroy Lindo riffing on Delta blues legends, and a camera that glides like it’s had one too many shots of moonshine. But somewhere between the sweaty buildup and the vampire throwdown, the story drops a pickaxe on its own toes. The obvious social commentary on Jim Crow, stolen Black lineages, and music as liberation keeps elbowing the supernatural until neither quite wins. By the time those Irish folk-singing bloodsuckers crash the juke joint, the tone is as confused as Stack deciding whether to shoot, sing, or sermonize.
Still, look closer and you’ll see the old horror hierarchy cracking. Sammie, the teen guitarist who should, by ’80s-slasher rules, be monster chow by minute thirty, instead becomes the story’s spiritual core. Smoke and Stack may posture like Blaxploitation antiheroes, but they aren’t sacrificial lambs either; they get agency, arcs, and yes, flaws big enough to drive a hearse through. That alone feels like a small revolution.
Still, do I wish “Sinners” trusted intimacy over IMAX? Do I wish someone had smacked the final reel out of the editor’s hands before the third epilogue? Absolutely. More than garlic bread at midnight. Horror is still learning that “representation” isn’t a magic fix for clumsy plotting; you can’t out-diversify a messy script.
Yet, despite its shortcomings, “Sinners” genre mashups of horror-musical-crime drama and Afrofuturist creature features about bootlegging twins actually have teeth. No more token Black guy dying for a jump scare; characters live long enough to be selfish, noble, broken, and heroic, and sometimes all in one. It’s a meaningful addition within this emerging era of new “Black” horror.
Where a lot of vampire movies stick to the traditional lore, “Sinners” remixed the mythology. Garlic and holy water still burn, but Coogler folds in Hoodoo charm bags, Choctaw monster hunters, and blues riffs that literally raise spirits. Black folklore matters too, and it was well merged into “Sinners.”
“Sinners, at the end of the day, is a hopeful movie. Black storytellers are dragging sunlight into the horror space, and that’s what “Sinners” does. We’re finally getting consistent, “at times, messy” horror movies about us. A decade ago Hollywood wouldn’t bankroll a $60 million Southern Gothic vampire musical with a mostly Black cast and a director determined to talk about sharecropping, Hoodoo, and systemic racism between neck bites. Now they do, because films like Get Out, His House, Nope, and The Blackening proved audiences want fresh nightmares, not the same pale retreads.
Will every swing connect? Not at all, because horror’s new class still has to deal with the studio’s red pen, audience expectation, and the monster of “elevated horror” prestige. Some films will overreach, others will play too safe, and a few will implode on takeoff. But that’s okay; failure is fertilizer. Every imperfect experiment like “Sinners” makes it easier for the next Black writers and directors to pitch something wilder, sharper, and boldly Black.
“Sinners” is a sweaty, swaggering mess of a half masterpiece and half midnight movie, but its very existence feels like a victory lap for a genre finally widening the door. Yes, I groaned when the climax turned into an over-lit shooting stakeathon, and yes, some subplots vanished into thin air. But I also caught myself grinning at the audacity of seeing Black characters who aren’t just victims or sidekicks but the bitter, bleeding heart of horror.
If this is what “growing pains” look like, keep ’em coming. The future of horror may still be dark, but for once it’s a darkness lit by voices that were always supposed to be singing the blues, brandishing stakes, and refusing to die first.
Screen Rated 