I’ve recently become aware of the Disney cartoon series Gravity Falls’ “Summerween” episode. The kids in the show are feeling bored one summer day before they’re inspired to create a spooky season celebration to combat the dank doldrums of the dog days. The holiday became a real-life cartoon-culture phenomenon during the 2020s, and Summerween season now sees social media influencers carving jack-o’-lanterns out of pineapples, donning goth-inspired swimwear, and lazing poolside, listening to John Carpenter soundtracks with a heat index of 103. I saw a werewolf drinking a piña colada on Tik-Tok. His hair was perfect.
Ryan Coogler’s Sinners debuted on MAX over 4th of July weekend, and it feels like Summerween has a real cinema hit to add to its warm-weather-wicked-ways in 2025: The movie is one of the top 10 films of the year at the box office, and audiences and critics both give Sinners a score of 97 on Rotten Tomatoes. Sinners is Rotten Tomatoes’ critics’ highest scoring vampire film ever, and it’s 2025’s biggest original horror success.
This is probably the only movie you need for your Summerween watch party, but Sinners is more than a horror flick: it’s a family drama, a historical snapshot and a crime movie; it almost wants to be a full-blown musical, but then a whole bunch of ravenous vampires show up. Sinners is set in the Mississippi Delta in 1932. The film follows identical twins Stack and Smoke (both played by Michael B. Jordan) who return to their hometown of Clarksdale after making a big score in the Chicago underworld. On the run from the big city and looking to go legit, they team up with their cousin Preacherboy Sammie (Miles Caton) to open a juke joint for the local Black community. But their opening night celebration quickly turns into something far more sinister when some spooky evils crash the party, transforming Coogler’s period drama into a full-throated vampire nightmare. Also, there’s banjos. Terrifying.
Sinners owes a lot to the Quentin Tarantino-penned/Robert Rodriguez-directed, schlocktastic, bloodsucker fest, From Dusk Till Dawn (1996). In that movie, the Gecko brothers (George Clooney and Quentin Tarantino) are on the run after committing a violent bank robbery. The brothers kidnap a family on an RV vacation to help them slip across the Mexican border. The motley crew takes refuge at a strip club in the desert where the Geckos have arranged to meet their contact. Salma Hayek delivers one of the great cameos in the history of horror and then — VAMPIRES! But Sinners also recalls Ralph Machio’s supernatural blues fable, Crossroads. And Coogler and director of photography Autumn Durald Arkapaw crib shots from The Shining (1980). Coogler also employs wires for his brief but unsettling flying-vampire sequences — they look just like the action choreography from The Lost Boys (1987).
What makes Sinners more than just a metamodern collage of other directors’ films is how Coogler weaves a blues music movie, a revenge thriller, a Blaxploitation homage and gore-gushing horror into something that feels both historically grounded and completely unhinged. Tarantino’s film flips a crime caper into a vampire orgy and the moment when the axis tips is unforgettable. Sinners has lots of surprises, but instead of totally flipping the script, Coogler balances real historical horrors against supernatural threats resulting in a horror flick that appeals to thinking adults as well as genre fanatics of all ages.
Sinners is one of the year’s best films, even if some of the raving is overstated. For all of its borrowing, it feels refreshingly original in a field dominated by spent sequels retreading winded intellectual properties. It’s a big triumph for Coogler and Jordan, who are proving to be a next generation Spike and Denzel after the unlikely success of their Creed trilogy. And, you know what? It’s kind of fun to watch vampire movies in the summertime.
Happy Summerween to all who celebrate.
Sinners is streaming on MAX
Joe Nolan is a critic, columnist and performing singer/songwriter based in East Nashville. Find out more about his projects at www.joenolan.com.