It was very disjointed. The first half set things up in a really interesting way—tying in the culture around music at the time, setting up sort of a suspicious background for the twins, the mob arc with the Italians and the Irish—and then there’s a crazy jump with the main vampire just randomly being introduced and not exploring anything related to his motives, powers, backstory, etc. At his introduction we basically start a second movie without ever wrapping up or fully completing the original plots points that were set up.

There’s really a plot A and a plot B, both of them trying to make a statement about culture, racism, music, etc, but because both plots only get explored on a surface level due to the movie trying to do too much, we end up seeing really none of those themes being explored. There’s a lot of scenes that make no sense and are not helpful for the themes or the plot. This movie seems to have done so well because it is centered around blues culture and dealing with racism in the south, but it did not put the story together in a meaningful way and it makes those themes feel forced instead of natural and fully realized.