“Sinners” trailer breakdown: Michael B. Jordan, Ryan Coogler bite into vampiric horrors in Prohibition-era South (exclusive)

"We're goin' to kill every last one of yah."

That warning from Hailee Steinfeld (Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse) lingers in the air with the release of the new Sinners trailer, which pulls back the curtain on writer-director Ryan Coogler's latest collaboration with star Michael B. Jordan. On the set of Entertainment Weekly's video shoot in Los Angeles in December, the pair look at each other to share a laugh, presumably because they've been so precious for so long about revealing too much of what their movie actually entails. And now the footage, which arrives Tuesday, shows off a vampire horror tale set in the South during Prohibition with a dual performance by Jordan, playing twins.

When Steinfeld's Mary flashes a smile full of fangs to the camera, as blood runs down her slinky party dress, you can't really hide it anymore. "I didn't cut this trailer. This man didn't either," Jordan playfully remarks as Coogler keels over laughing at the shots of vampire mayhem. "But...we believe this trailer is gonna help get people in seats."

Related: Sinners first-look trailer unleashes Michael B. Jordan as twins in Ryan Coogler horror movie

With their fifth movie together as actor and director — following Fruitvale Station (2013), Creed (2015), Black Panther (2018), and Black Panther: Wakanda Forever (2022) — Jordan and Coogler walk EW through the Sinners trailer, revealing insights into certain scenes and new details about some of the key characters popping up.

"[There's] a lot of internal conflict in the movie and all the relationships get turned on their head at some point in the film," Coogler teases. The main brothers are inseparable, he also notes, but something happens that presents an "existential challenge to that relationship." (See the full trailer below.)

One day of terror

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Sinners plays out over the course of a single day. The setting is 1932 Mississippi amid the waning years of the Volstead Act, which defined the Prohibition Era of American life by outlawing the production, sale, and possession of alcohol. In one scene, covered-up crates of beer are spotted in the back of a pickup truck. "They got a lot of alcohol in that truck," Coogler remarks. "It's the equivalent of having an illicit drug today."

It's at this time in American history when folks are looking for a drink that we find twin brothers facing creatures with a different kind of thirst. Years after leaving their troubled lives behind, the siblings return to their hometown for a fresh start, only to find an even greater evil lurking. One raucous night at the local juke joint, a bluesy and boozy speakeasy that caters to Black patrons, turns into a fight for survival when vampires attempt to enter the premises. Based on the trailer, it's clear not everyone makes it 'til morning.

Double duty

Jordan plays said twins, named Smoke and Stack. The easiest way to tell them apart most of the time, the actor comically points out, is that Smoke typically wears a red wide-brimmed hat, while Stack wears a blue newspaper boy cap. The first shot of the trailer where we see them side by side, playfully joking with a stranger that they're cousins, is their introduction in the movie itself.

"Playing twins was definitely a challenge. It was part of the reason why I wanted to take the role," Jordan says. "Ryan really built two characters that were very much so different but kind of the same." Another way to tell them apart: "Smoke doesn't smile often," Jordan adds. "If you're smiling, more than likely it's Stack, nine times out of 10."

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Coogler praises Jordan's "beautiful performance" as both characters. He recalls a moment when the actor walked on set as Smoke. "I never told you this, but it unnerved me, like, quite a bit," the filmmaker confesses. "It was a trip. I was like, 'Aww s---! This is gonna be a wild ride,'...'cause I didn't feel like I was talking to you."

Having worked with the actor for so long, Coogler believes the real Jordan has more of a kinship with Stack than Smoke. "The people who know me — know me know me for real — I think they're gonna enjoy it because they'll see the side of me that I don't show a lot of people," the star says.

"It's in there..." Coogler points out, laughing.

Juxtaposing imagery

The presence of twins speaks to the larger duality at play in Sinners. Coogler explains how "the film explores the dichotomy of American culture," pointing specifically to the dueling locations of the church and the late-night speakeasy. The relationship of those settings is "a conflicting one," Jordan notes. "It's actually the same type of environment," Coogler elaborates. "You'll see the same people. Saturday night, they're acting crazy. Sunday morning, they're acting holy."

The villain

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The trailer offers audiences the first look at Jack O'Connell (Back to Black) as the main vampire, Remmick, who Coogler confirms is the main antagonist for "a good chunk of the film." The twins, he says, "are our scariest characters...until they meet this guy who's bringing a whole other element to the characters, who hopefully we've fallen in love with at this point. He's playing a different type of game, he's playing [with] a different set of rules."

An example is the scene from the trailer where Remmick speaks with Steinfeld's Mary. He speaks of the need to save her, which she interprets in a religious way. "He's talking about something else entirely," Coogler comments, "a little more supernatural."

A team to survive the night

Delroy Lindo (Da 5 Bloods) plays Delta Slim, a "hometown hero" and "phenomenal piano player," Jordan describes. "He gets convinced, and bribed a little bit, to join the gang for the night and go on this little adventure with us. He ends up being a pillar of strength amongst the group when things get a little crazy, a little supernatural. He adds a lot of..."

"Everything!" Coogler finishes.

Meanwhile, Omar Miller was among the top of Coogler's cast wishlist. He plays Cornbread, a guy from the neighborhood who has history with the twins. "But he's also just a guy...trying to get by at a time when it was really difficult to do that." As the trailer reveals, Cornbread isn't so lucky when it comes to facing the vampire threat encroaching on the juke joint.

Other folks surviving the night include Wunmi Mosaku (Loki, Passenger) as Annie, another lead character opposite Smoke and Stack, and Li Jun Li (Babylon) as Grace. Jayme Lawson (The Woman King, The Batman) and singer Miles Caton also have roles.

Passion project

In a separate international press conference held virtually on Monday, Coogler went into further detail on Sinners, which he calls a personal project. The filmmaker's grandfather on his mother's side, who died before Coogler was born, and his Uncle James, who passed away during the making of Creed, were from Mississippi.

"It was a place that I had never been," he says. "I was fortunate to have a really, really cultural relationship with my Uncle James. The seed of [this movie] started with that relationship with my uncle. He would listen to blues music all the time. He would only talk about Mississippi when he was listening to that music. He had a profound impact on my life, and I got a chance to dig into my own ancestral history with this film. It's been extremely rewarding."

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A lover of horror since before he became a director, Coogler cites the Coen Brothers as inspiration, specifically Inside Llewyn Davis, Fargo, No Country for Old Men, and O Brother, Where Art Thou? He also lists John Carpenter's and Robert Rodriguez's oeuvres but notes the Stephen King novel Salem's Lot and a 1962 episode of The Twilight Zone called "The Last Rites of Jeff Myrtlebank" were his two biggest influences.

It's for that reason Coogler hesitates to label Sinners a vampire movie. "It's genre-bending, it's genre-fluid, the film," he explains. "There are vampires in the film, but it's really about a lot more than just that. It's one of many elements, I'll say. And I think we're going to surprise people."

Sinners opens in theaters April 18. Watch the trailer, as well as EW's exclusive trailer breakdown with Coogler and Jordan, above.

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