Now - this one punched well above what I thought it would, and I wished I'd watched it in theatres or at least on a big screen TV and LOUD.
It was a recommendation by a fellow cinephile neighbour - and I had a few recommendations for him as well, but before I asked about them I thought it polite to watch his recommendations.
This was excellent. And before I go on, there will be a few spoilers. So - read more only if you've seen it...
I mean, the ambience of the "Old South" and the "Mississippi", well captured, the costumes, the "Boys done well", the roadhouse - Ryan Coogler's done an excellent job. An amazing job. And the KKK - well, the references; the hood, ....
And then the Vampires showing up, the little singing trio, all white folk, and the first vampire they convert, also white folk, and the subtext of white-folk leaching/sucking/vampiring off of Black Culture, then the activities at the roadhouse - hence the title; "Sinners", and the slow development of evil intent ...
By the time it reaches "Rocky Road to Dublin" (Full Suite in Link) it's peaked, in a beautiful way...
From there, well, downhill, not in a bad way but in the reconciling of the plot, the "Sinners" in the roadhouse, but in no-Hollywood-predictable ways, the Vampires, the KKK, the deep-south religion and blues, substantially more intelligent than the trailers can reveal, and the end - not unpredictable, but certainly not Hollywood. There's a lot of intelligent subtext in this.
Now I'm looking forward to meeting the neighbour again, for other recommendations, as he - like me - is finding - recognizing - gold in unexpected places, and I suspect we have more in common than I think.