It’s 2025, and everyone has to like everything the same amount, and the dissenting opinion is always wrong. A Minecraft Movie is nothing but memes and stupid references. Comic Book Movies are OVER and every new one sucks. And every good horror movie is the “best horror movie of the last decade.” (NOTE: these aren’t my opinions, and this is simply an attempt at humor/proving a point) It’s never been more difficult to simply not vibe with something because it doesn’t match your own sensibilities. I’m here to be the dissenting opinion for a certain vampire movie taking the world by storm: Sinners. [Check out Chris Bumbray’s glowing review HERE]
*Spoilers for Sinners below!*
While I would still fall on the side of FRESH if this were a Rotten Tomatoes score, I can’t help but see the movie’s flaws. If I were to review Sinners, I’d give it a 7/10, and I’d likely forget about it within a couple of weeks. To me, it’s not the masterpiece that it’s being made out to be and it’s very simple as to why: Sinners did stuff that I didn’t like. Whether it’s vampires simply leaving a situation for plot convenience, an overabundance of offscreen deaths, or some of the most random dance sequences in a non-musical film, it simply wasn’t for this horror fan.
Don’t get me wrong, the music in Sinners is very good. But there were times where what’s happening on screen doesn’t match the tone of the music in any way. In fact, there’s one sequence where there are competing beats, meant to represent a blend of music over the years, yet it just becomes this mishmash of sounds. It’s not pleasing to the ear, notes blend into one another with clashing BPMs, and its intention feels completely lost. And my natural reaction is to simply roll my eyes when characters start singing and dancing. It’s a difficult element to overcome.
As much as I would love to join the praise, this is where the “be true to yourself” part of the job comes into play. I love vampire movies, and the vampire element is easily the weakest aspect of Sinners. This would have been an infinitely more interesting story without the vampires, and it was just the two black brothers trying to start a business in the Deep South. They don’t even take advantage of the monsters, with most of the vampire carnage being done off-screen. Hell, their presence is not even felt until over an hour into the story. Nearly every single death is done off-camera, and they just sort of happen, without any real impact. As much as the trailers make this seem like some big standoff between the vampires and the inhabitants of the club, that’s a very minor part of the story. Hell, the big showdown at the end occurs between Smoke and bunch of white supremacists; no vampires in sight. Furthering the notion that the vampires are simply an afterthought.
While Sinners is filled with awesome performances, the writing for these characters feels very tired and uninspired. One of the twins is in love with a white girl, the other having lost his child, and both running from their criminal past; it felt like the film was simply trying to check off every stereotypical box it possibly could.
But the biggest issue with Sinners comes with its failed Vampire logic.
One thing I’ll always hate in a vampire story is presenting these monsters as an unstoppable force that spreads very easily, yet these are somehow secretive creatures. I’m sorry, but based on this movie, we just saw a whole group get changed overnight, with very little pushback. If that’s the case, the entire world should be overrun with vampires. Don’t give your Vampires, zombie-like transference of powers if you don’t examine all that it implies. You have to give your bad guys limitations, otherwise the question constantly becomes “Why have these guys not simply taken over?” Instead, the vampires prove to be completely inept, not even realizing that the sun was on the verge of rising (something that you get warned of for quite a while due to this thing called Dawn).
Whenever a movie comes along with a lot of hype, it’s understandable to be a bit cautious. And it’s also understandable to see it and not fall in line simply because everyone else loves it. It’s important to be strong in your convictions. I wanted an awesome vampire movie, and I instead got a story that used the mythical creatures as an allegory for racism at the time, while still featuring a non-fantastical group of villains present, bringing the question as to why we even got vampires in the first place. I liked plenty of Sinners, but the stuff I didn’t is too prominent to ignore.
This is an unpopular opinion after all so get in those comments, tell me how wrong I am, how I missed the point, and how I don’t know horror movies. Or tell me why Sinners worked FOR YOU! I’d love to hear from you.
The post Unpopular Opinion: Sinners Is Good, But Is It A Masterpiece? (SPOILERS) appeared first on JoBlo.
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