Sinners: A boundary-crossing horror movie that tackles religion

Sinners is a fun, stylish, vampiric horror that highlights racial justice issues and has great music. Christians may not like how the Church is portrayed, says Jonty Langley, but if that’s the case, they should ask themselves why it is perceived that way

From the first half hour of Ryan Coogler’s latest film, Sinners, you’d be forgiven for assuming it’s a generational family saga. Or a period-piece crime flick. With its Southern Jim Crow setting, you might think it’s a social justice drama.

But the promo material makes it look like a horror. And it is. As well as a family drama and a social justice crime flick. And a musical.

Its star, Michael B Jordan, plays twin brothers, Smoke and Stack Moore, poor lads made good in 1920s Chicago, who return to Mississippi with pockets full of cash and a dream to start a black-owned business in America’s racist South. The twins are distinct characters and yet inextricably linked, and so it is with the genres Sinners could be said to occupy.