- Directed by: Ryan Coogler
- Written by: Ryan Coogler
- Stars: Michael B. Jordan, Miles Caton, Saul Williams
- Run Time: 2 Hours, 17 Minutes
- Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bKGxHflevuk
Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone
It’s very much a humanity and period drama with magic and horror in the background, at first. Then things get crazy toward the second half. The cast, direction, music, and effects are all excellent. Especially the use of music. It’s on the long side but worth it.
Spoilery Synopsis
It’s 1932 in Clarksdale, Mississippi. A man with a broken guitar walks into church, and the preacher gets really upset, changing the sermon to talk about men who are full of sin. He wants Sammie to give up his sinful ways. We get flashes of violence and blood.
We flash back to the cotton farm, where all the black people work in the fields; it’s after slavery, but the echoes of it are still strong. We then cut again to two brothers, Smoke and Stack, who are dressed up with a fancy car. Mr. Hogwood shows up and shows them some property. It gets a little tense, but they’ve got a bagful of money and buy it.
Sammie argues with his preacher father about going out for the evening. “You keep going out with the devil, sooner or later, you’re gonna bring him home.” He goes off with Stack and Smoke, saying he’ll be back for service tomorrow. They’ve got big plans for the day and night.
The three are planning on putting a juke joint together, with lots of drinking, at the old sawmill they just bought. Stack runs into Mary, an old jilted lover, and a white looking woman as well, so she could be trouble. The harmonica player, Delta Slim, tells a story about why black folks shouldn’t get too successful.
Smoke goes to see Annie about cooking at the juke joint tonight, and they have a long history. We get a montage of everyone setting up for the party, including the cooking.
Elsewhere, a dirty-looking and injured white man beats on a door and asks a white couple for shelter from the Choctaws. He offers them money to let him inside, and they invite him in. A short while later, a Choctaw scout with others shows up, and he says he’s looking for a dangerous man who’s not what he seems. She lies and says she hasn’t seen him. They soon leave, and the strange man kills the couple, who should’ve never invited him in. Before long, all three of them are vampires.
Mary shows up to the big party, and she looks a little out of place there. Stack wants her out of there before trouble breaks out; she’s part black in the family, but has been passing for years, a prime target for lynching.
Delta Slim finishes his piano set and introduces Sammie, who plays the guitar. The magic of music fills the room. We see a guy playing an electric guitar and half the crowd is dressed like anachronistic rappers, ancient Africans, and even Asian musicians and dancers thanks to the Asian grocer and his wife. (I guess the Blues are timeless?). They are having a goooood time.
And then the three vampires, Bert, Joan, and Remmick, show up outside. They talk to the doorman/bouncer and want it. They pull out instruments and start playing; they say they just want to join the party, and they’re pretty good bluegrass singers as well. Smoke does not want to let them in.
Smoke gives Sammie some career advice; he wants to keep his young cousin out of trouble, but Sammie thinks he might want to go to Chicago like the twins did.
Mary wants to talk to the white trio about coming back; the twins are going to need every dollar they can get. She finds them playing their music right outside the barn. They’ve very friendly– until they aren’t.
When Mary returns to the party, she needs an invitation to come inside. The vampires start picking off people as they go outside to pee. As Smoke deals with a cheating gambler, Stack and Mary make out; she’s drooling. We see that yes, they did turn her outside. By the time Smoke and Sammie come in, they’re both covered in Stack’s blood. Smoke wastes zero seconds filling her full of lead, but that doesn’t even slow her down.
Stack bleeds out as everyone watches; the party is over. Annie talks to Sammie, and she seems to know what they’re dealing with– she wants to move Stack’s body outside for a while. They end up locking the room he’s in.
Cornbread comes back from peeing and needs an invitation back inside. Annie accuses him of being a haint now, and the others don’t interrupt her at all. It gets so obvious that he needs an invitation that they all know something’s up with him.
There’s a knocking at the locked storeroom door; only Stack’s dead body was in there. He’s feeling much better now and busts down the door. Annie splashes him with a bottle full of pickled garlic, which makes him sizzle and run out. And then she decides they aren’t haints, they’re vampires. She says that they all need to hold out till sunlight. She explains all the rules of vampires to the group.
They find someone laying in a pool of blood. When the men carry a body outside, they see that there’s a whole bunch of vampires out there dancing as Remmick sings very Irishly. It’s a whole big musical number, and the vampires apparently not only get immortality and bloodthirstiness, but also a talent for Irish singing and dancing. Clearly in many ways they are an extension of Remmick.
Inside, everyone eats some garlic to prove they aren’t vampires, and Remmick comes to the door, making it clear how things are going to turn out for all the people in there. The Klan was already planning to come and kill them all. The mill was a trap by Hogwood that’s been used more than once, to get a bunch of black folks together in one place. The vampires are much nicer, or so they say. Stack talks to Smoke, and he makes a good case. Eternal life in one big happy family.
One of the crew finally breaks and dares the vamps to come inside. Remmick perks up – was that an invitation? Good enough! There are a lot more vamps than humans already, so the fight is a little one-sided. Smoke ends up staking Annie, which upsets Mary.
Remmick wants Sammie’s songs and wants to absorb his musical talent. Meanwhile Stack and Smoke fight inside. Sammie whacks Remmick with his guitar that has a silver disc that ends up embedded in his head. That really hurts, and all the vamps feel the wound. Smoke comes out of nowhere and stabs Remmick all the way through with a stake as the sun rises. Most everyone burns in the sunlight, especially Remmick.
Smoke tells Sammie to go home and bury that guitar. They seem to be the only ones left alive.
Smoke unpacks his old army rifle and goes after the Klansmen who arrive to shut down the juke joint. He’s got a machine gun and grenades too, and he takes out all of the evil white men. He gets shot, dies, and yet still has a happy ending.
Back in the opening scene, Sammie walks back into his father’s church with the broken guitar. We see that Sammie’s got a big clawmark on his face. Instead of dropping the guitar fragment and turning his back on music as his father urges, we see him driving away with it.
We flash forward many years and see that Sammie is old and has made a long career from singing the Blues. He runs a club of his own now, and one night, he gets some very strange visitors who need to be invited in… Stack and Mary.
Stack tells their story and asks Sammie to play for them; he’s repaired that same old guitar.
Brian’s Commentary
The vampire effects toward the end are really good, but they aren’t overbearing through the rest of the film. This is the kind of vampire story that makes you wonder how there aren’t already billions of vampires all over the world.
It’s got a big budget, and the historical setting and context are just about perfect. It’s really slow getting to the action bits; there’s only one quick scene about vampires in the first 70 minutes, much more a period drama than anything else, but once the sun goes down, it gets pretty crazy.
The magical realism during the first musical act stands out from everything else. The singing vampires is a little weird as well, but not as much as the first musical number.
It’s long, but it’s really excellent.
Kevin’s Commentary
Remmick must restrain himself and his minions to keep a reasonable clan size. It’s very easy to convert others to loyal vampires. It was cool how the vampires seemed to be extensions and connected to Remmick while still retaining much of their original personalities. I really liked the long stretch without much vampire action as we got to know the characters and the world they are living in. Then the vampire action kicked in nicely. The use of music was great. And I was impressed with how flawlessly Michael B. Jordan played twins, both his acting and the special effects. This one is a winner.
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