Sinners review: Michael B. Jordan plays twins in an intoxicating Southern vampire flick

Running time: 137 minutes.Rated R (strong bloody violence, sexual content and language).

In theaters.The South and vampires go together like wooden stakes and undead hearts. Anne Rice put classy Lestat’s feeding grounds in New Orleans, Louisiana, and the trashy vamps of “True Blood” got steamy in the bayou nearby.The warm locale reliably spices up these chilly guys.Now, director Ryan Coogler, of “Black Panther” and “Creed” fame, moves his sultry Draculas one state over — to Mississippi — in the transfixing film “Sinners,” a shrewd genre-bender that blends the blues, religious fervor and the violent hatred of the Jim Crow era into a magic spell. The air down South is thicker than blood, and heat and passion pulse, even through the mounting number of characters who have no pulse.“Sinners” begins arrestingly, with young Sammie (an innocent Miles Caton concealing hidden mischief) storming into a church covered in dirt and bodily fluids.Then we rewind 24 hours to the arrival of mysterious twin brothers Smoke and Stack, both convincingly and charismatically played by Michael B.Jordan, who are returning home from Chicago to open a juke joint that very night.Unusual for this kind of movie, for a long stretch viewers forget they’re watching a horror film. In gentle small-town scenes — OK, an unlucky fellow is occasionally shot in the leg — the pair drives around gathering supplies, hiring bartenders and enlisting a blues band, including Sammie, a preacher’s son who sings and plays guitar against his strict father’s wishes.The upbeat mood, occasionally broken by the harsh political climate of 1932, is a “getting the band back together” sort.When everybody is finally gathered to drink and party in a retrofitted barn — old flames (like Hailee Steinfeld’s Mary and Wunmi Mosaku’s Annie), new sparks (Jayme Lawson’s Pearline) and hardworking friends — we’re soon ripped back to deadly, fanged reality.Coogler, who also wrote th...