“Sinners” and “KPop Demon Hunters”: a double feature that slays through song

Many strange yet unexpectedly wonderful pairings begin with two superb commodities fortuitously coming together. But in this time of cultural experiences starting and ending at home, some great meetings must be engineered.

So it is with “Sinners,” Ryan Coogler’s runaway filmmaking phenomenon blending Black American history, music, legend and horror, and — would you believe — Netflix’s animated sensation “KPop Demon Hunters.”

Why not? “Sinners” transforms mid-film to become a vampire bloodbath, while the words “demon hunters” are right there in the other movie’s title. Beyond this, following that suggestion takes a bit more faith. Look at their respective posters: One is wrought in a palette evoking dried blood and burning sunsets. The other sparkles with pastels and electric jewel tones.

“KPop Demon Hunters” showcases its namesake trio, a girl group called Huntr/x, serving choreography, wielding glittery weapons, or floating in the air like angels. If you’re not already a K-pop fan, “KPop Demon Hunters” might not be on your list of must-see movie options. At least, that’s what I thought a few days ago.

Then a friend shared a call-to-action social media post by media influencer Amanda Castrillo, who suggests “Sinners” and “KPop Demon Hunters” would make a great double feature. Like she says in her insightful video posted on Instagram and TikTok, “these two POC-led movies with music as a focal point changed my brain chemistry.”

Castrillo’s post lays out a solid list of the two films’ common themes. Both show how music can be used to build community, but also be exploited as an assimilation tool. Both depict how multifaceted people within communities can be; how those individuals within those communities can experience them differently; and how each of those experiences “comes with its own set of blessings and curses.”

“I’m just saying that both narratives explore societal obligation versus personal desire and navigating the world as an individual that walks many fine lines,” she concludes.

Can confirm — Castrillo is right.

K-pop’s worldwide fandoms have a history of standing with the Black community when it has come under attack online, especially during the summer of 2020, when the Movement for Black Lives brought millions of people into the streets. K-pop stans stood against MAGA trolls online, foiling their best attempts to cyberbully activists and allies into silence.

Purely from a musical lover’s perspective, though, the two movies complement each other the way fried fish works with a naengmyeon chaser. (That leads us to the question of which order to watch these two. My advice is to open with Coogler’s masterpiece, saving “KPop” for dessert.)

“Sinners,” set in 1932, stars Michael B. Jordan in a dual performance as twin bootleggers Smoke and Stack, who return from Chicago to their Mississippi home to open a juke joint. They recruit their cousin Sammie (Miles Caton) and local legend Delta Slim (Delroy Lindo) to provide the opening night’s entertainment.

None of them know that Sam, who goes by the stage name Preacher Boy, is a special talent, “born the gift of making music so true that it can pierce the veil between life and death, conjuring spirits from the past and the future.” His professional debut makes for one heavenly party, and attracts denizens from hell — a trio of vampires led by Remmick (Jack O’Connell), who wants Sam’s power for himself.

Unlike Preacher Boy or Delta Slim, Remmick doesn’t want to share that gift. He intends to use it for himself and compel everyone to dance to his tune.

“KPop Demon Hunters” strums some the same chords in a more innocent key, swapping in a K-pop trio for Delta blues masters. Still, they all make the same kind of big, sacred magic Delta Slim talks about. As Huntr/x, Rumi (Arden Cho), Mira (May Hong), and Zoey (Ji-young Yoo) hunt demons when they aren’t singing their hearts out for stadiums full of fans. For them, stardom is a serious duty connected to maintaining the strength of a protective barrier over humanity called the Honmoon.

Instead of a veil simply dividing the living and the dead, it also bars demons from invading our world. The trio’s ultimate goal is to turn the Honmoon gold, which would lock out the demon realm for all time. They nearly get there before evil strikes back with an irresistible quintet called the Saja Boys. They’re sexy! They have a catchy single called “Soda Pop”! They are also too good to be anything other than demons in disguise.

But the average human can’t see that. They’re simply drawn to their sex appeal and their catchy riffs, and have no clue that they’re paying the price of their fandom with their souls.

Huntr/x also has a member in its ranks who’s passing for human at the insistence of her mother figure, much like Hailee Steinfeld’s Mary, Stack’s ex-lover, passes for white in “Sinners” at Stack’s insistence. The consequences of each woman pretending to be something they aren’t turn out to be massive.

Since “KPop Demon Hunters” is all-ages friendly, its version of that subplot resolves with a lesson about valuing your individuality instead of letting your secret consume you and everyone around you.

Ultimately that person’s specialness strengthens the overall community, saves the world — and yields Huntr/x another hit single called “Golden,” which will soon have shower soloists and car passengers joyously belting, “No more hiding, I’ll be shining like I’m born to be!” if they aren’t already.

(Netflix) “KPop Demon Hunters”

This might seem like an international exchange of a double feature, but “Sinners” and “KPop Demon Hunters” are both American films based on original concepts. Coogler wrote and directed the former; “KPop” is directed by Maggie Kang and Chris Appelhans and comes from Sony Pictures Animation, the studio that produced “Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse.”

Together, they speak to the American experience through music, with the live-action version conducting a conversation with history and culture through music as the animated feature presents similar ideas through a metaphorical lens.

Each shows the ways music can be a tool for resistance and healing. We see that in “Sinners” when Delta Slim recalls a fellow musician’s lynching, then processes that agonizing memory by humming a stirring melody before urging Sammie to catch up on guitar.

That scene may be too much for young children to take in and understand. “KPop Demon Hunters” has a much softer example in a plot that leads into its climactic performance of its song “What It Sounds Like”: after the hero is exposed and humiliated, she writes a new song to trade the previous generation’s insistence on her self-abnegation for a new era built on acceptance:

 Why did I cover up the colors stuck inside my head?

I should’ve let the jagged edges meet the light instead

Show me what’s underneath, I’ll find your harmony

The song we couldn’t write, this is what it sounds like.

In addition to “KPop Demon Hunters being the most popular movie on Netflix right now, the soundtrack is also climbing the charts, currently sitting at No. 3 on the Billboard 200 behind “Virgin,” the latest from Lorde, and Morgan Wallen’s “I’m the Problem.” As of Thursday, the soundtrack’s top single, “Golden,” was the 14th most-played song in the U.S. on Apple Music and sat at No. 38 on Spotify’s Top Hits list.

The “Sinners” score and playlist are instant classics and endlessly playable, while the rapid ascent of the “KPop Demon Hunters” soundtrack makes it ripe for sing-along goodness. All of it has me crossing my fingers in the hopes that “Sinners” and “KPop Demon Hunters” double features pop up in theaters around the country. Make it Barbenheimer, but for 2025.

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Two summers ago, the most overt commonality shared by Greta Gerwig’s and Christopher Nolan’s opuses was a release date pitting the predicted box office whales against each other. Yet somehow, the notion of a double-viewing became that summer’s thing, yet again thanks to someone floating that suggestion on the Internet. On their opening weekends, “Barbie” earned $337 million worldwide while “Oppenheimer” brought in another $174 million.

While precise counts of how many people numbed their buns through that double feature aren’t available, there’s no question that millions of us committed to the bit. And like this suggestion, the chimera named Barbenheimer was born on the Internet.

It also drew people out of their pandemic bubbles and into theaters, which is where these roads diverge. “Sinners” had a robust theatrical run — to date, it’s 2025’s eighth highest-grossing film worldwide, holding its status of scoring the third highest domestic gross, according to Box Office Mojo.

Now that it’s available to watch on HBO Max, the likelihood of seeing that fandom blend with “KPop Demon Hunters” stans in the wild is pretty low unless some theater owners make something happen. Somebody should.

Our couches are comfortable; our living rooms are (hopefully) safe, but everybody loves a local movie night that reminds us of all the ways music weaves people together, wrapping us in its veil, strengthening the Honmoon, keeping evil at bay, even if only for a few hours. It’s not much to ask. Like Castrillo says, “That’s all I’m saying.”

“Sinners” is now streaming on HBO Max. “KPop Demon Hunters” is streaming on Netflix.