matt_zimmer | "Sinners" Review (Spoilers)

Sinners

Wow, that was great.

The whole experience felt very rich the entire way through. This was obviously a passion project for Ryan Coogler, and despite it being a horror film, this was also a labor of love. It felt very truthful for that reason. And it spoke truths that are things people need to hear today.

Maybe that's why the movie resonated so much. Because people today aren't fucking listening and it takes a vampire flick to make them even show the slightest bit of interest.

Maybe I'm wrong. Unlike Get Out it's not like every white character in the film was pure evil. But like Get Out, there are no comforting white sympathetic characters to make white audiences feel more comfortable either. It refuses to offer the way things were back then (and still are) through the lens of rose-colored glasses. That's kind of awesome.

Can I be honest though? I thought the film was a LOT more interesting before the vampires showed up. I found Smoke gunning through the entire town's Klan at the end far more eminently satisfying and cathartic than the big obligatory vampire showdown. And his brief glimpse at his next life after death says he made the right decisions that night.

Sammie's epilogue with Stack in 1992 was cool for the uneasy peace made between the former friends. I'm not saying there's anything good about vampires in this Universe. But it's clear they feel real things and have people they actually care about.

One of the reasons I dislike horror is because it is always so depressing. And despite this film being tough to watch in places (honestly, the vampire stuff is literally the most narratively comforting bit of the film) I didn't feel that way. The film ended the right way, which means a great deal to me.

Coogler made an interesting choice with the Blues montage in the middle of the film. He showed a man with an electric guitar and a man with a turntable to show the fluidity and flow of Black American music over the decades, past and future. But this specific Avant Garde flourish is interesting to me because it suggests much of the film's reality may not be literal. And since it's the only sequence that's questionable in that department, it has me wondering exactly how much else of the narrative's reality I could completely trust. I imagine my reaction to that montage is unusual and I'm betting most people took it as the artistic flourish it seemed to be. But for me, it raised cool questions.

I rarely watch horror films. But my friend recommended this one and she was right. It's amazing. ****1/2.