The movie, Sinners, reminds me of Godzilla Minus One, from 2023.  Both are fresh, engaging and memorable monster movies.  They use a similar narrative format to liven up the genre.

Both movies take place in an era and setting that is realistic and identifiable, but hasn’t been overdone in other movies.  The stories focus on the struggle of ordinary people to survive when they aren’t free, but also are not brutally oppressed.  Someone with a dodgy past comes back home to upset the balance.  That is enough for an interesting movie, then the monsters show up.

In Godzilla Minus One, the setting is post-war Japan.  Much of the island is wrecked and resources are scarce, but people can get by under the Allied occupying force.  The movie focuses on a few people who support each other, when a dishonored kamikaze pilot joins them.  Then Godzilla shows up.

In Sinners, the setting is Mississippi in the Jim Crow era of the 1930’s.  Black folks have to go along, to get along.  Conditions are hard, but if they don’t stir up trouble, the KKK mostly leaves them be.  Two brothers who had left the South for better opportunities in Chicago, return to setup a juke joint.  Not much is explained about their time in Chicago, but they were involved in post-prohibition era crime and they have money.  Then the vampires show up.

A preachy movie about racial injustice would be tedious.  Sinners is not that.  White folks are not villains, but people in the KKK are.  They show up, but it’s a minor element of the plot, and may have been a distraction from the story.  It’s a movie about Black folks.  In that respect, it reminded me of the Friday movies, with Ice Cube.  They are engaging without us.

Music is a major theme.  The brothers are opening a juke joint, so Mississippi blues music is what pulls everyone together.  Music can have a mystical quality that transcends time.  The initial vampire has an Irish heritage, so Irish ballads unite the vampires.

Every vampire movie gets to establish it’s own rules, but must adhere to the fundamentals.  These vampires die in sunlight, can’t tolerate garlic, must be invited to enter a building and die with a wooden stake in the heart.  A few rules make them particularly threatening.

In Sinners, a bite on the neck is enough to initiate a change, and it happens in a few minutes.  The vampires retain their old personalities.  A person could be gone for a couple of minutes, and come back as an undetectable vampire.  When a person turns, a mental connection is established between all of the vampires in the horde.  They have access to the knowledge, memories and sensations of the other vampires.

If Sinners had a deep message or symbolism, it was lost on me.   Vampire movies can be scary and gory, but aren’t unsettling or traumatic because they are not a realistic threat.  These are not suave vampires, because the Mississippi Delta people aren’t romantics.  Even before the vampires showed up, couples didn’t make love, they humped.  Vampires didn’t change that.

Both movies did well in theaters.  Godzilla Minus One cost $15 million to make, and had $113 million in ticket sales.  Sinners cost $90 million to make, and is currently at $358 million in ticket sales.  After two months in theaters, it is still pulling in decent numbers.  Both are memorable enough to pull in viewers on streaming services.  Hollywood should make more good movies.

I might not choose a movie about Mississippi blues or about vampires, but combine them, and you’ve got a great movie.  In the 1930’s, I doubt they would drop F-bombs.  That didn’t happen often, but it took me out of the movie a bit when they did.  I’d give it an 8.5 out of 10.