Sinners

Sinners is one of those films where almost every individual part could have gone wrong and somehow none of it does.

The first thing that hit me was the experience of seeing it in the cinema. Some films are perfectly good at home, but this felt built for a big screen and a huge sound system. The music doesn't just sit in the background. It surrounds the whole film.

What I love most is that it doesn't rush to become a vampire movie. You spend a huge amount of time with these characters before the horror really takes over. You see the community, the music, the relationships and the reason this juke joint matters.

By the time the vampires arrive, you're already invested.

Michael B. Jordan playing both brothers could easily have felt like a gimmick, but it never does. They feel like two separate people rather than an actor talking to himself, and there is so much emotion underneath those performances.

The entire cast is excellent, but the music might be the thing that pushes this into another level. Blues, rock, metal, religion and history are all being pulled together. The juke joint sequence where different generations of music seem to exist together could have completely destroyed the tone if it had been handled badly. Instead it becomes one of the most memorable scenes in the film.

Even the vampires are visually interesting. The eyes, teeth, hands and practical effects make them feel recognisable as vampires without just copying what we have already seen.

I also love how much is going on underneath the horror. There are ideas about religion, community, cultural ownership, family, trauma and what music can mean to people. Remmick isn't even a straightforward monster once you start thinking about what he wants and where he came from.

The biggest compliment I can give Sinners is that I struggle to find something I would change. I watched it at the cinema, watched it again afterwards and still couldn't find that element where I thought it needed fixing.

And please don't turn it into a franchise just because it was successful. The story works because it feels like somebody made the film they wanted to make and then stopped.