Who doesn’t want to see Irish Dancing vampires?

I had been meaning to watch Ryan Coogler’s Southern Gothic epic for a while. At this point, I probably don’t have to bestow its virtues on you. It’s a really good movie. So good, in fact, I even enjoyed watching it while feeling incredibly sick on a 13.5-hour flight. Can you get a bigger compliment than that?

But what resonated with me wasn’t the masterful and unrushed storytelling (amazing in this world of short-form content). Nor was it the fact that Sinners (2025) isn’t a remake, sequel, or prequel. No, Sinners had managed to break new ground not just in the horror genre but in cinema in general.

Now, I like haunted houses and possessed dolls as much as the next horror buff, but it does get a bit…same-y (technical term). And in our extremely polarized climate, storytelling that says something and makes a statement is extremely important.

Sinners tells the story of identical twin brothers: Smoke and Stack (both played by the great Michael B. Jordan), who have returned to their hometown in the Mississippi Delta in 1932. Leaving behind their lives of hustling in Chicago. An infamous, yet beloved, pair of gangsters, they plan to open a new Juke Joint for their old community, made up of mainly African American sharecroppers. The twins employ the musical talents of their younger cousin Sammy ‘Preacher Boy’ Moore (Miles Caton). Little do they know that Sammy’s otherworldly musical talent attracts the attention of dark forces. This being the ancient vampire: Remmick (Jack O’Connell) and his ‘band’ of somewhat merry vampires who lie in wait for the party, leaving the brand new Juke Joint.

I know what you are thinking: how are vampires original? Well, yes. You have a point; well done. But it’s what Sinners does with the vampires. As one Redditor commented; ‘I expected the vampires to tear shit up but not on the dancefloor!’ As a fellow Brit, it’s nice to see Jack O’Connell (SKINS UK) flexing his acting and singing skills. O’Connell does play an interesting baddie.

Sinners opens with a narration on the power of a certain individual’s music. Legends of people born with “the gift of making music so true, it can pierce the veil between life and death, conjuring spirits from the past and the future”. We are shown that Sammy has such a gift when, during one scene, Sammy sings and plays his guitar on the opening night of the Juke Joint to an extremely enthusiastic audience. As Sammy plays his guitar and croons, the crowd begins to dance. And as they dance, the veil is ‘pierced’ and figures from the past, such as African tribal dancers, appear and dance seamlessly with the crowd. As well as modern spirits, including a DJ spinning discs, and an electric guitar player. It’s an awe-inspiring and uplifting scene, and it shouldn’t work as well as it does.

Sammy’s song (‘I Lied to You’ by Miles Caton) perfectly encapsulates the universal human experience of getting lost in a song and dance. You know when the music and company are just soooo good you can’t help but move your body, no matter how ridiculous you probably look? Well, my friends, there is the devil. You are dancing with the devil! Just kidding. But in that effulgent moment, it feels like you are dancing surrounded not only by your loved ones, but your ancestors, too. The scene reminds us that when humans first danced and sang, it was as a form of prayer to a higher power. No wonder people over the centuries (and even today) equate these moments and certain individuals’ talents with evil.

One is reminded of Blues singer Robert Johnson (1911 -1938), who was born in Mississippi and lived around the same time as the movie’s main time period. Much like the fictional Sammy, Johnson was accused of ‘selling his soul to the devil’ for singing secular music. Initially, no one was particularly impressed by Johnson’s singing or his guitar playing until he disappeared for up to a year and returned with an almost supernatural talent. According to legend, during his time away, Johnson met the devil at a crossroads (in Sinners, the twins Juke Joint is situated on a crossroads). The devil granted him immense musical talent in exchange for (you guessed it) his soul.

We find these stories across time, such as the Venetian violinist Giuseppe Tartini (1692-1770), whose most famous sonata, known broadly as ‘The Devil’s Trill’, is a hauntingly beautiful piece lauded for its technical difficulty. Tartini claimed he wrote the piece after a dream where he sold his soul (the going rate) to the devil in exchange for the composition. Even Led Zeppelin got caught up in the 1980s ‘Satanic Panic’ when they were accused of masking satanic messages in their songs. Excellent fodder for horror movies, no?
With the background of Blues music, sharecropping, and 1930s Jim Crow Laws, the film doesn’t shy away from social commentary; just as relevant today, almost a hundred years later. It’s fitting that the Sinners vampires not only feed off their victims’ blood, but also their memories and talents. The head vampire, Remmick, himself is a thousand-year-old Celtic vampire whose family’s land was taken from them by colonizers (presumably the English). Evil begets evil.

African Americans brought their music and beliefs with them when they were stolen from Africa. The dominant culture has always siphoned, appropriated, and outright stolen not only their labour but culture as well. When Remmick is introduced, he is being pursued by members of the Choctaw Tribe. Native Americans are another marginalised group who have been mined for their spiritual traditions and aesthetics.

Sinners allows its audience to shrewdly make all the connections and realise that everyone in the cast (including the vampires) is a victim in some respect. Remmick’s land was stolen from him, so he’s stealing others’ “land” in return. Smoke and Stack manipulated and stole from gangs in Chicago to return and sell the stolen goods to the masses in their hometown. We can see these patterns repeating in our modern world. Are we all vampires?

Ryan Coogler has cleverly turned ideologies into the villain, not the vampires. The film creates an ‘uncomfortable nuance’ which encourages the audience to question their own beliefs and values. No jump scares, no sharp music stings, just the creeping awareness that the events on screen, no matter how fantastical, mirror our reality perfectly.