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There are many upcoming monster films slated to be released this year including
Feces, A Quiet Place Part III, Luc Besson’s Dracula: A Love Story, and Guillermo
Del Toro’s Frankenstein. The early in the year release, The Sinners, sets a high
standard of quality that most of the year’s later horror films probably will
probably not be able to match.
Sinners is a handsome gothic supernatural story with a mostly all-black and
Irish cast which takes place in Mississippi. The film is heavy on local color
and its positively dripping with atmosphere. It is easily the best looking
southern supernatural thriller since Eve’s Bayou (1997).
The film has been very popular and it has gotten universally positive reviews.
So far it has earned over 68 million and it is the seventh most popular film of
the year. When I saw it in the middle of a weekday afternoon there were hardly
any empty seats.
Structurally it resembles From Dusk till Dawn (1996) since it starts out as a
gritty crime drama/road trip film then it suddenly and abruptly becomes a horror
film in the second half. Some have complained that the film did not need
its horror elements, but I thought the film’s genre mixing was one of the most
interesting aspects of the film.
Also, like From Dusk Until Dawn, this film employs somewhat unconventional vampires.
The victims here become vamps immediately after they die just like zombies, and they
are very fond of playing Irish music and doing folk dances. Conversely they also have most
of the traditional vamp weaknesses like garlic, stakes, sunlight, and silver.
Also, when the vamps are staked here, they do not explode.
The film also uses the zombie trope of people being stuck inside a house with
the undead outside as their bitten former friends inside quickly become
monsters. Although the vampires here are repulsive and savage, they are only
slightly less loathsome than the Klan members which play a prominent role in the
script.
The film was directed by the highly talented Ryan Coogler, who did the fine Indy
feature Fruitvale Station (2013) as well as
Creed
(2015), one of the better entries in the Rocky Series. But he is probably best
known for the top-notch Marvel Universe film,
Black Panther
which combined superhero
conventions with Afro Futurism. But the sequel which he directed Black Panther: Wakanda Forever
(2022)
with its laughable portrayal of Namor was not nearly as impressive.
This Sinners is a fine showcase for the acting talents of Michael B Jordan who
also appeared in Coogler’s other films. The actor and director clearly click and
have great chemistry. He could become Coogler’s cinematic alter ego in a similar
way that De Niro became Scorsese’s alter ego.
Jordan is very impressive in a dual role of two identical brothers, Elijah
“Smoke” Moore and Elias “Stack’ Moore. One of them can be seen as the dark
reflection of the other, and the identical twin in which one is a vamp idea was
previously used (less well) in the Hammer film, Twins of Evil (1972).
The story begins when the two brothers return back from Chicago and head back to
their native Mississippi. They have a ton of money at this point and plan to
open a juke joint. But trouble rears its head when Mary, Stack’s ex part white
girlfriend, played Hailee Steinfeld shows up looking sublimely sinister with a
mysterious stranger. The bar visitors and the owners soon find out they are
surrounded by the undead, and they try to hold out until the sun comes up
although they are clearly outmatched and outnumbered. And even if they survive,
they will have to deal with the KKK who want to drive them out of town,
The R and B musician, Miles Caton appears in his film debut as Sammie Moore, a
young blues musician. Like the subject of the popular Dusty Springfield and
Aretha Franklin song with the same title, he is the “son of a preacher man.”
Even though he is playing the so called “devil’s music,” he is struggling to
stay moral against temptation
.
The film also is a meditation on the blues and music is integral to the story.
In the legend of Robert Johnson, a mediocre blues musician meets the devil at the
crossroads one night and sells his soul to become the greatest blues
musician and gain a kind of immortality because his music never dies. In
this film a young blues guitarist gets a proposal or is offered this “devil’s
bargain” from a vampire. If he joins him in vampirism and allows himself to be
bitten, he is promised immortality. The film also includes a terrific cameo from
Chicago blues legend, Buddy Guy, as an older version of the surviving
characters. At one point a character named Delta Slim says, played by Delroy
Lindo says “White folks they like the blues just fine, but they just don’t like
the people that make it.”
The soundtrack of Sinners was written by the Swedish composer Ludwig Goransson.
the same person who worked on the Black Panther soundtrack. Here one of the highlights
is his techno/metal collaboration with Jerry Cantrell, the former guitarist from
Alice in Chains, one of the finest Seattle grunge bands.
Like
Watchmen, the film conveys some essential information through old
newspaper headlines. From one headline we learn that around 1910, a ship arrived
in America from Ireland with no passengers was founds with blood everywhere and
a burning man was spotted leaving the ship. This is clearly a homage to the
Dracula novel and it sheds light on how Emerick, the head of the Irish vampire
gang came to America. We also see a headline about how a war between Capone’s
Italian gang and the Irish mob over a missing alcohol shipment doting
prohibition. This suggests that Emmerich’s Irish vampires stole the shipment and
manipulated his competition, the two gangs into fighting.
Sinners is stronger on style than story, and I don’t feel that the ending
totally works. But for most of its duration, this is a fun, thoughtful, stylish
and superior horror film. It deserves both its critical and commercial success.
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