Sinners (2025)
You might recognize the name Ryan Coogler from breakout hits like Fruitvale Station (2013), inspirational dramas like Creed (2015), and game changing superhero action movies like Black Panther (2018). But you may not have realized that a part of the secret sauce in all three of these groundbreaking films is the one and only Michael B. Jordan. This dynamic duo has done it again, bringing us a completely out of the box, genre-bending film that is horrifically captivating.
What do we mean? From the ingenious mind of Ryan Coogler director and Ryan Coogler writer comes Sinners (2025), a period piece-drama-thriller-action-horror-musical. Yes, we said musical! It is hard to describe how unique this film is. For starters, most horror films are typically set in modern or contemporary times. Add to this that musicals are usually rather straight forward in their presentation and this film, surely, is not.
The story at the heart of Sinners revolves around the identical twin brothers Elijah “Smoke” Moore and Elias “Stack” Moore. It’s 1930s in the racist Jim Crow US South and the brothers have just returned home from the mean streets of Chicago after deceiving some white mobsters who dared to underestimate them. They have cash, liquor, supplies, and what’s more, a dream to start their own hot night spot with the help of their super talented younger cousin, Sammie Moore (played by the talented actor and musician Miles Caton). Problem is – well there are actually a few – like Sammie is the child of a God-fearing minister who forbids him to engage in such unholy behaviour, the space (which can only be described as a barn) which the brothers decide to rent is actually owned by some Klansmen, and Stack is in love with the white passing, mixed race woman Mary (played by Hailee Steinfeld) who has supposedly moved on and married a white man, but who inserts herself in the brothers’ opening because she is still hopelessly in love with Stack. Oh, and did we mention that some white demons have targeted the Moore brothers and their black clients? Yes, we said demons! This is what we mean by genre-defying.
Interestingly, it is a group of indigenous people who initially identify and track the white male demon, Remmick (Jack O’Connell), to the house of a white couple who against their warnings, decide to give him sanctuary. Inside the dark and dismal home, a discarded white Klansman’s hood suggests that we should not spare our compassion for this racist white couple who are about to well, yes, be turned into demons too.
Back at the club, the night has kicked off with the black crowd grooving to the music of Delta Slim (played by the incomparable Delroy Lindo) and Sammie. Arguably, the most innovative scene in the film is what transpires when Sammie is performing. Earlier we have learned the power of griots who are portals between the past, present, and future. We see this in action when Sammie sings and plays his guitar. Wildly, powerfully, imaginatively, Sammie is surrounded by African ancestors in ceremonial dress, a black ballerina, a Jimmie Hendrix style rock star, a George Clinton-like funk musician, and even a hip-hop DJ at his turntables. They all dart and dance, and twirl, and perform around Sammie (and the crowd) who is immersed in his music making and oblivious (a least consciously) to their spiritual presence.
In stark contrast, when the white demonic threesome show up for opening night at Smoke and Stack’s new club, they play what can only be described as rhythmless white folk music, beseeching the brothers and their friends to let them inside. You see, as we come to understand, the demons can’t enter a building unless they are invited in. So, they rely on their prey to let them into their safe spaces or to step outside. Sadly, Mary is one of the first to go outside and she comes back changed (if you know what we mean). Alarmingly, she seeks out Stack who unknowingly invites her in and is all too easy to seduce. So by the time she’s done with him, he’s dead, or so Smoke and their friends think. You see, in their transition into demons, people who have been attacked appear to be briefly dead, that is, before they come back to life as the undead.
Smoke has skin in the game too. As we come to learn, leaving for Chicago was motivated in part by his inability to stay and face the pain of the death of his baby, a child with his beloved Annie (Wunmi Mosaku), a beautiful, full-bodied, dark-skinned healer with wisdom to spare. One by one, Smoke’s friends and family are picked off (or bitten) by the demons and transformed into demons themselves until only a few are left unharmed. By the way, these demons come together for a spectacularly bizarre musical number outside the Moore brothers’ joint.
But the question is, who will live and who will “die,” and if living means facing the Klan (who have planned an ambush for the next day), what awaits the survivors? When all is said and done, only one brother survives, but that is if you don’t count the undead as alive. Remember, the undead are people too, kinda!