Vampiress Review: Sinners (2025)

The Gist: When twin brothers from Chicago (Micheal B. Jordan) move to the Jim Crow era south and start a juke joint, the music grabs the attention of a vampire preacher looking to make the patrons part of his congregation. 

Female Vampire Factor: (SPOILER WARNING) There are a lot in the film as by the films end nearly everyone who attended the juke joint gets turned but the one who gets the most screen time is Mary (Hailee Steinfeld)

Mary is the product of a mixed-race father and a white mother who was raised around the black community to the point that she is considered one of them.  She had a relationship with one of the twins who left her high and dry sleeping with her but then leaving before she woke up but we eventually learn that despite him trying to make it look like he didn't care he did it to protect her from people finding out she was with a black man and the danger it could cause her.  

When the vampire paster and his minions arrive asking to come in and party with the black towns people she volunteers to go out and interact with them to see if they are legit or if they had ulterior motives.  This results in her being bitten off camera which starts the horror portion of the film.   Her, already having the trust of the community would then be let back into the club where she would seduce and then bite one of the twins killing and turning him. 

Final Opinion: To say the story of this film is deep is a major understatement and it has enough plot for three different movies which explains the nearly two and a half hour run time.  The first hour and 15 minutes covers the lives of the twins and their younger cousin who is the son of a preacher but who wants to be a jazz musician which his father disagrees with.  This is mostly them planning the business which could have been condensed honestly.  Then the next 45 minutes to an hour introduces the vampires with the final 20 minutes being an action drama about black gangers taking on the Klan which raps up everything that was set up before the vampire part.

Similar to From Dusk Till Dawn the vampire portion is the most memorable part of the movie but also the shortest part.  In fact, the first thought that came to my mind is the film does borrow a lot from that movie with a strip club being replaced by a juke joint. 

It does border on being a musical with the amount of performing that goes on in the film as even the vampires get a turn singing and playing instruments.   

The most interesting thing in my opinion is that the vampires aren't necessarily villains.  I mean they are definitely villains but in the films hiarchy of monsters the vampires are nowhere near as bad as the Klansman with the head vampire somewhat having a Jim Jones mindset in that he is not killing people in his opinion and constantly tells those that he wants to turn that as vampires there is no racism and everyone is equal so he is liberating them and that's exactly how it comes across once they do turn as even the Klansman that he turns lose the hateful mindset once they're vampires.

As a film on its own it's definitely 4.5 stars (only thing keeping it a 5 is just how needlessly long it is).  As far as a Vampire Beauty Rating though 3 out of 5.  The limited time Mary gets post turn is good and some of the other main female characters get a few seconds of screen time with fangs but overall, they are an afterthought in the film that mainly exists in the background as random faces in a fight scene otherwise.