Fighting racism is bad enough, but in Ryan Coogler’s new movie Sinners, Michael B. Jordan plays twins dealing with forces of evil both natural and supernatural.

Coogler (Black Panther, Creed) wrote and directed Sinners, which can be summed up a story of two brothers “trying to leave their troubled lives behind, twin brothers Stack and Smoke (Jordan) return to their hometown to start again, only to discover that an even greater evil is waiting to welcome them back.”

Sinners plays out over the course of a single day in 1932 Mississippi at the end of the Prohibition Era when the production, sale, and possession of alcohol was prohibited by federal law. During a raucous night at the local juke joint, a hidden-away speakeasy that caters to Black patrons, Jordan’s characters and the others find themselves in a fight for survival when supernatural forces – demons, vampires, ghosts, etc. attempt to enter the premises. 

Music, particularly the blues, plays a big part in the movie, and is prominent in the trailer, which features a guitarist/singer who seems to open a portal to another dimension. Patrons dance at the speakeasy, the tempo increasing until everyone is sweaty and frenzied.

“You keep dancing with the devil, one day he’s gonna follow you home,” someone says.

In a virtual press conference, Coogler called Sinners his most personal film to date. It allowed him to explore his ancestral Mississippi family history, talk to his nearly 100-year-old grandmother, and pay tribute to his uncle, with whom he was close to and who passed away while he was in post-production on 2015’s Creed.

“It’s a world that my grandparents were a part of,” he said of the setting, “A time that is overlooked in American history.”

This is Coogler and Jordan’s fifth film collaboration. Sinners also stars Hailee Steinfeld, Jack O’Connell, Wunmi Mosako, Delroy Lindo, Lola Kirke, Omar Benson Miller and Li Jun Li.

Sinners dances its way into theaters on April 18th.