MOVIE REVIEW – Just two months ago, blood was still flowing in dark movie theaters, and now, thanks to HBO Max, we can see exactly what happens when Ryan Coogler lets his imagination run loose. Sinners isn’t just another vampire flick: it’s a full-on blues extravaganza set in the sultry Deep South of the 1930s, featuring unmistakable Coogler-style characters and a bold cinematic vision. He flips the vampire genre on its head, hitting you with blues and the steamy nightlife so hard, you’ll feel like you’re stumbling along the banks of the Mississippi yourself. Does Coogler’s human-centered, almost lyrical perspective really work in this bloody setting? I guarantee you’ve never seen a vampire movie this raw, offbeat, and soaked in the blues—and you’d be missing out if you skipped it, especially if you’re hungry for a film that rips the mask off genre clichés and rubs your nose in something entirely new.

Ryan Coogler doesn’t mess around: he turned Creed and two Marvel blockbusters into instant cult hits, but it’s clear he’s long been itching to make a film painted entirely with his own brush. He made it clear with Fruitvale Station that he wasn’t interested in cookie-cutter social drama—and now he’s finally let everything loose on screen. Sinners is the essence of that creative freedom: Coogler grabs classic Southern legends, throws them in a pot with vampires, and cooks up the whole thing with blues, sex, mysticism, and just a hint of jazz spice.

We’re in 1932, in a muggy Mississippi backwater, where two brothers—Smoke and Stack (both played by Michael B. Jordan in a mind-blowing digital double act)—return from seven years in Chicago. The gossip gets there before they do: people fear them, people idolize them, and the legends have them mixed up with Capone and the underworld. They’re classic Southern antiheroes, planning to open a juke joint where cold Irish beer and crispy catfish flow, and the blues drowns out everyone’s troubles. Stack, the wilder brother, recruits the preacher’s son Sammy as a musician for the club, while Smoke gets back to dealing with the local tough guys and reconnects with his hoodoo-practicing wife, still mourning their lost daughter, Annie (Wunmi Mosaku).

The club rises from the ground in a single day—it’s the American dream with a bit more sweat and a whole lot more blues. By sundown, half the town is dancing, the atmosphere is electric, the beer is cold, and the music is hot—but this is just the beginning. Three vampires, led by Remmick (Jack O’Connell), show up, but they’re only playing nice until they get an invitation inside. That’s when things really go off the rails: it takes just one bitten guest for the party to spiral into a full-on bloodbath, and suddenly the dance floor becomes a battlefield. Blues, blood, screams, and Southern absurdity—all at once, more than the screen can barely contain.

Blues Instead of Blood—and Then Some

One thing’s for sure: Sinners is Coogler’s best-looking movie yet, and not just by Marvel standards. You can almost feel the heat, the damp cotton fields, and the weight of the Southern night. The shadows of the Jim Crow era are always lurking in the background, but it’s the blues, the energy of the community, family, loss, and all the sins that haunt everyone here. Even if the vampires are a bit over the top, the club scenes will get your heart racing—they’re so alive you almost forget you’re watching a horror movie, right up until the blood starts to flow across the dance floor. Miles Caton’s voice is the soul of the film, making you forget the outside world until everything erupts into chaos.

The musical numbers are a knockout: maybe not as completely off-the-rails as Babylon’s wild opening, but wild enough to stick with you for years. Coogler isn’t shy about staging these larger-than-life scenes—Michael B. Jordan pulls double duty with style, both the charming troublemaker and the tragic antihero. Coogler’s storytelling swings between family drama, social commentary, horror, and Southern grotesque—sometimes all in the same scene. Sinners is a true genre cocktail, and it works better than you’d expect.

The horror doesn’t always land: sometimes it’s more about atmosphere than outright scares. The vampires are occasionally almost comical—especially after Robert Eggers’ Nosferatu—but it’s clear Coogler cares more about layered characters than mindless monsters. The brothers’ emotional baggage, the divided community, and all the bottled-up grief end up more compelling than the carnage. Here, the real weapons are the blues, family ties, and sheer will to live—and in this, Coogler is in top form.

When the Vampires Are Really Just Extras

People complain that modern horror lacks the wild energy, blood, and excess it once had—Coogler seems ready to bring that back, but loses his nerve halfway. Sinners’ biggest flaw is that just before the bites really get going, the camera always cuts away, leaving you with sly genre jokes and bluesy showdowns instead of raw terror. The vampires are basically caricatures: singing outside the club, quickly morphing from potential monsters into something more like Mormon missionaries. Jack O’Connell’s Remmick swoops through the air, but he’s more parody than predator—especially when he starts Irish dancing before dropping right back into Southern vampire mode. The film’s cultural mash-up is so tangled, you might just end up shaking your head in disbelief.

The effects don’t always land either—the vampires’ eyes just flash weirdly, and that’s about it for scares. But the cast more than makes up for it: Michael B. Jordan is on fire in both roles, loose as Stack and heartbreakingly tragic as Smoke. His chemistry with Steinfeld works, and his scenes with Annie hit hard. Wunmi Mosaku steps up from TV star to big-screen force, while Miles Caton steals the show in every musical scene. Coogler isn’t winning any awards for his vampires here, but he gets the most out of his actors—everybody’s so in their element, it’s a blast to watch.

Blues, Blood, Dance—But the Horror’s Running on Half Power

Sinners is a real jolt: Coogler packs ten years of filmmaking experience into a genre experiment where visuals, music, and action take center stage. When the character work is shallow or the script stumbles, you don’t even mind—films this bold, wild, and eclectic are a rare find. The one thing that needs to be said: Coogler still isn’t a master of horror, but maybe that’s okay. Sinners proves that a truly gifted filmmaker can thrive on unfamiliar ground—and maybe horror is better off for it, when someone this bold refuses to take the rules for granted. The blood, the blues, the Southern gothic weirdness—it’s not for everyone, but if it’s your kind of movie, you won’t forget it.

– Gergely Herpai “BadSector” –