Set in 1932 Mississippi, one of the most important aspects of Sinners lies in the allegories that it tries to implicate, either through its characters or even through the situations that the characters find themselves in. This is true when the drama jumps to a 24 hour flashback (with most of the drama tracing the events of the past 24 hours), and you are introduced to the characters of the Twins Stack and Smoke (an incredible dual by Michael B Jordan). The allegory starts with their perceived appearances that seem to be similar – also working on the psyche of the viewers who wpuld generally label the Blacks as a single entity (as opposed to their individualities which is often skipped). There is a brief history that the twins have undergone –  having been World War 1 veterans to suffering from PTSD and a traumatic childhood involving their violent father, through their tryst with Al Capone (an American Gangster) and their works in Chicago that saw them accumulate an amount to buy them a saw mill from a racist landowner. Clearly, the events could have been compiled into a separate film on its own but the crucial commentary lies in their struggles to make it big in an ‘alien’ city away from home. So when they decide to convert the saw mill into a juke joint with the representation of African-American music, it is their way of preserving the arts and cultural, and more importantly their voices in an otherwise imperialistic setting.

There is also a searing commentary on the state of the characters whom Smoke and Stack meet to perform on the fateful night at their fateful place. Delta Slim (Delroy Lindo) is a local drunkard who whiles away his time in singing away to glory. Cornbread (Omar Miller) is a worker in the fields who is approached to act as a bouncer for the night. Even the Chinese couple of Bo (Yao) and Grace (Li Jun Li) run a shop to make their ends meet. They may seem normal people but their lives are indirectly impacted already by the brutal imperialism that has taken over the nation. Amidst all the others, Sammie remains an important cog given his immense ability to sing and play his guitar, a feature that would completely open up the skies and the astral with the emotions in store. He essentially remains a young voice who is on his way of shaping up his own identity much unlike the practices around him that he is largely unaware of.

There is a steady buildup to the proceedings that even indulge in a hint of a personal life for the two twins involving their estranged spouses. Annie (Wunmi Mosaku) was primarily estranged after Smoke relocated to Chicago before returning home, and her occult practices seem almost escapist in nature while she believes that it took care of the twins despite losing a child in the bargain. Mary (Hailee Steinfeld) is also the ex-girlfriend of Stack, and an important character given her ethnicity that ‘passes for white’ (on the racial scale). The mix of culture with respect to Mary or even Grace makes this issue more deeper rather than restricting it only to the ‘Blacks’. And this is also when a nemesis appears in the form of Remmick (Jack O’Connell), an ‘immigrant’ Irishman who is shown to be a vampire. In a scene, you see him attacking and converting a ‘white-supremist’ couple into fellow vampires – a stark commentary on how an ounce of hate can spread like a plague, something that is even more true with the onset of social media.

The binding factor in the drama is the music, something that also acts as a tool of originality and identity while being on the verge of imperialism by the White-Supremists. So if the male gaze was a cause of subversive horror in the Hindi show Khauf, the subversive element here is related to racism – an early bout of which we witness at the Juke Joint with Sammie invoking the supernatural (unintentionally due to his purity) through his singing, that also meant for a bounty call for Remmick.

The entire setting of a survival thriller goes beyond its normal stereotypes given the emphasis on the larger picture – what if all the mixed ethnicities die in a night? It would be the death of originality and the rise of imperialism. And quite honestly, that is America in a nutshell – with foreign invaders rising on the top of the foodchain by literally taking over and destroying the culture with respect to different ethnicities and races. The second half is a direct commentary on this very survival of the individual voices, that goes beyond the survival of characters that is presented in the form of a horror. Even when you witness a handful of ‘Blacks’ swaying to the tune of the commanding vampire, it doubles up as a commentary on survival in the modern world, wherein the only way to co-exist is to ‘fit’ into the ‘alien’ world. This is synonymous to the messaging in Kneecap (2024) wherein the protagonists did use rapping as a tool for retaining their originality and identity.

There are some wonderful allegories that lace the finale in this drama that can best be termed as a tragedy. While almost all characters are dead, a veiled commentary on the irrelevancy of the ancestors that may have died during the fight, the lone survivor remains Sammie who is further provoked to give up on his voice, referring to his musical instrument. In the mid-credits scene, you see a timejump of 60 years with an older version of Sammie still performing. It is clear that Sammie had chosen to retain his voice, and even when he is acquainted with the ‘vampire’ versions of Stack and Mary, he refrains from becoming immortal (Stack doesn’t attack him to honour Smoke’s plea for Sammie which ironically was poetic given the latter’s clash with his younger cousin). It was Sammie’s way of holding fort without succumbing to the atrocities around him. Even in the end-credits scene, it shows Sammie playing a guitar, the same instrument that was on the verge of being broken in the opening scene. In that sense, the ending was counterpointing to the opening act, with a symbol of hope – Sammie on his final leg in life recalls the fateful night reminiscing how he felt the most free hours before tragedy struck! And that truly encapsulates the emotions that the masterful screenplay has to offer!