It is simple enough to say a movie is suspenseful, but how do you quantify how suspenseful it is? Here is one way. Ryan Coogler’s new film Sinners generates so much suspense — and then sustains it for so long — that at one particularly anxious point I heard a small snap from my seat. I looked down and realized I had tensed up and squeezed my notebook so hard that I cracked its back cover. (Yes, I take notes during movies, like all extremely cool persons do.)

So yeah, Sinners is pretty intense.

And if that’s all Sinners was, that would already make it worth seeing. But this movie is way more than just an effective thriller. It’s the rare studio production that engages your intellect while it scares you senseless. And after the messy Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, it firmly reestablishes Coogler as one of our finest working Hollywood directors.

Full review at ScreenCrush.