Sinners is a breathtakingly terrifying ode to Black mythology

is a reporter focusing on film, TV, and pop culture. Before The Verge, he wrote about comic books, labor, race, and more at io9 and Gizmodo for almost five years. Sinners reads as a deeply personal narrative that’s been gestating within Coogler’s mind for years, and the film shifts between being scary, stylish, and sexy in ways meant to leave you in awe of how magical movies on the big screen can feel. And while the movie doesn’t exactly reinvent the bloodsucker genre, it pours a captivating and beautiful energy into it that makes this feel like Coogler working near the height of his still-growing creative powers. Everyone is guilty of at least a little heathenry in Sinners, but there are few people with reputations as tarnished as twins Elijah / “Smoke” and Elias / “Stack” (both roles are played by Michael B. Jordan). Years after the brothers went off to fight in WWI and returned to become liquor-running gangsters in Chicago, people back in Clarksdale, Mississippi — where they’re or ... Read full article.