SINNERS (official new entry in my favourite horror movies of all time)

I'm so glad I saw this movie on release day, ahead of the wave of praise it's received from viewers since. It allowed me to go in relatively blind, and experience my emotions in isolation... and phew, this movie certainly had me feeling things! Huge spoilers ahead!

For the uninitiated: SINNERS is about twin brothers Smoke and Stack (both played by Michael B Jordan in brilliant antihero mode), who are returning to their Mississippi hometown after time spent working for the mob in Chicago. They have a truck full of good quality booze and have purchased an old saw mill, which they plan to turn into a juke joint using their ill-gotten welath. The first half of the movie follows them as they travel around their old town, trying to drum up interest in their opening night, and recruit local musicians to perform, including their gifted cousin Sammie. Sammie is also known as Preacher Boy, because his father is the local preacher and strongly disapproves of Sammie's passion for music, which he claims can let devils in. Then, halfway through the movie, the vampires arrive (much like in FROM DUSK TILL DAWN, another favourite movie of mine. Although the two have been compared and do share some similarities, I think they're very different vampire films). Irish vampire Remmick literally drops from the sky and heads straight to the house of local KKK members, who become his first recruits.

This is a movie about the importance of Black music to heritage and community. It's also a movie about the way in which the music industry feeds off Black music and musicians, like the vampires themselves, taking but not returning, and destroying in the process. As vampire Remmick says during his final fight with Sammie, "We want your stories! We want your songs." Yep, that's what the entertainment industry says, all while subjugating the ones it's taking from, just like Remmick.

The vampires are drawn to Sammie's talent, but so are the locals - skill like his is a double-edged thing. We see its power in my favourite scene in the movie, where Sammie performs and the entire joint is transformed, bringing in spirits from the past and future, from a West African griot to a modern hip-hop dancer. And here, dance is as important as music and song (as it is in so many precolonial cultures.) It's clear this power extends beyond one culture: when Asian-American couple Bo and Grace join the dance, they bring with them the spirits of dancers from their own heritage. The walls of the juke joint then seem to fall away, because here there are no boundaries (and this is the point at which we realise the three vampires are watching, able to fully see the spiritual elements of the performance that the juke joint patrons can only dimly feel.) I loved this scene, and the way it showcased so many musical genres in such a short time, (and yes, how it felt a bit like invoking ancestors.)

I really appreciated that Grace and Bo had accents that marked them as being just as much "from" this town as everyone else. The inclusion of them and the Choctaw vampire hunters helped underscore, for me, what the film has to say about colonialism, and how its legacy and the damage it causes through generations spread like a disease: which is one of the reasons why I think it was appropriate for Remmick to be of Irish descent. All who have been touched by colonialism are damaged. Also, it united them against the KKK, because these characters have community. The Choctaw vampire hunters may not have lived in the town, but they still serve the community by trying to eliminate a threat to its existence (and - to judge by the state of Remmick when he first appears, plus the fact that he is alone - they nearly succeeded.) By contrast, all the KKK want to do is destroy.

Put the guitar down!

This brings me to what I think is the heart of the movie, illustrated via the framing device at the beginning and end: the clash of religion and music, symbolised by Sammie's guitar. (I talk about this more in this TikTok.) At the start of the film, Sammie arrives at his father's church, bloody and traumatised, and carrying his broken guitar. His father urges him to put the guitar down and repent his sins. We return to this scene at the end of the film (aside from that delightful epilogue that plays over the credits.) By the end of the movie, however, dropping the guitar means a lot more than just dropping the guitar. This guitar literally saved Sammie's life: he used it to strike Remmick, which distracted him and the other vampires tethered to him long enough for the sun to rise and destroy them all. It also figuratively saves his life, and the life of his community, by connecting them with each other, by connecting them with the past and their heritage (which the music is able to evoke) and by providing them with solace and an outlet for their pain. In a memorable scene near the beginning, musician Delta tells a story about his friend being lynched, and as he starts to moan in despair, he changes the sound into the beginning of a song, which the others then join in with. That is what blues music is... pain, turned into something beautiful to soothe the soul. And this is what Sammie offers his community. (In the same scene, Delta says, "White folk like the blues just fine; just not the people who make it," and therein lies the crux of why pop culture takes from Black people, but rarely acknowledges or gives back.) In this way, the music is a form of survival. It's a thread connecting people with each other, and with their past, and though it attracts those who just want to take, it also allows people to save themselves. In asking Sammie to put down the guitar, his father is asking him to turn his back on his heritage and his community. There can be only one answer to that.

By contrast, when Remmick seems to have won and Sammie is truly desperate, Sammie starts reciting a Christian prayer. Remmick laughs, joining in, and then goes on to say that this religion was imposed on his people, too. It's clear that Christianity will not save Sammie. It holds no power here. But his guitar can save him, in a quite literal way, as we see a moment later when part of it winds up lodged in Remmick's head. This for me lies at the heart of the film: music will save and uplift us, will connect us with the past and our destiny. The religion of our colonisers will not. And that's why, as the tagline of one promotional poster goes, "we are all sinners."

I also think it's significant that Annie's traditional knowledge ends up giving them the edge. This woman, who lives outside town, almost like a witch, knows about vampires, just as she knows about herbs and spiritual matters. This is not of Christianity either, instead suggesting a knowledge passed down from a source connected to an older heritage. And it's vital in helping them last through the night. Honestly, Annie was the MVP and as a big fan of Wunmi Mosaku, I really loved this character. I also appreciated the character Mary, a white-passing woman who is the one they send out to speak to Remmick when he claims to just want to come in to enjoy the music and drink.

But the movie doesn't end with Remmick's death! It ends when Smoke remains behind at the Juke Joint, to take out all the klan members when they arrive to destroy the place, which was their plan all along. I loved this ending. It undescores that even after all that, the true enemy is the white supremacists. They're the real monsters. They're the final boss. Because white supremacy will always be the biggest threat.

The epilogue, where we learn Sammie lived out his whole life as a blues musician, and that Smoke spared his brother when he became a vampire on the condition that Sammie was left alone. Stack and Mary are now able to be together in a way that would have been impossible as mortals. Sammie's whole life (and this whole movie) is a blues song. He took his pain and put it into a career. I've since learned that this movie is partly inspired by the life of blues legend Robert Johnson, and stories that he made some kind of Faustian deal with the devil, which is surely another reason why it's called SINNERS. It's interesting that the vampires in this movie have a kind of hive mind, and live in a kind of bliss (as turned characters repeatedly say.) Sammie is offered a chance at immortality, but apart from the cost being his individuality, it will also cost him his pain. And the pain is what fuels his music. Just as he rejected his father's plea to repent, he rejects the vampires here. What the two offer is the same: destruction. Maybe there is solace to be found within them, but the cost is who we are.

I'm sure there's loads I missed. I'm sure there's loads more I'll notice when I get to watch again. And I'm sure there's loads that I don't have context for, as someone who's not from the US. But this movie affected me on, shall we say, a spiritual level, and I can't stop thinking about it.