SINNERS

This is two movies for the price of one! A pair of Black brothers open a blues bar in Louisiana cotton-growing country, which is raided by vampires! Impossible not to be reminded of Tarantino’s From Dusk to Dawn, where a kidnap story morphed into a vampire bloodfest.

Both halves of Sinners are brilliantly executed. The singing in the bar is at the level of Diana Ross’s Billie Holliday, and the vampire slaughter is totally at Tarantino’s pitch. The highly talented, almost entirely Black cast were mostly new names to me. They all play their roles with total seriousness, which prevents the movie from sliding into camp, which often happens with OTT horror – as in the Dr Phibes movies or Theatre of Blood (Vincent Price really was the King – or Queen! – of High Camp). The apocalyptic ending is up there with the latest adaptation of Mr King’s Salem’s Lot. Special effects have come a long way since Christopher Lee fell to bits at the end of the 1958 Hammer Dracula – still of hallowed recall.

Writer/director Ryan Coogler (whom I only know from the Creed movies) is at the top of his game. The sumptuous style and cinema-tography are in the league of Coppola’s Dracula. All that gore, plus Singing the Blues – there’s a whole lot going on here.