section_path: Plot
section_name: Plot
paragraph_text: Plot
  
  In 1932, identical twins and World War I veterans Smoke and Stack Moore return to Clarksdale, Mississippi, after years spent working for the Chicago Outfit. Using money stolen from gangsters, they purchase a sawmill from racist landowner Hogwood to start a juke joint for the local black community. Their cousin Sammie, an aspiring guitarist, joins them despite his pastor father Jedidiah's warnings that blues music is supernatural.
  
  Stack meets his white-passing ex-girlfriend Mary, who resents Stack for abandoning her out of protection. The twins recruit pianist Delta Slim as a performer, local Chinese shopkeeper couple Grace and Bo Chow as suppliers, field worker Cornbread as bouncer, and Smoke's partner Annie as cook. Annie believes her Hoodoo practices kept the twins safe, but Smoke doubts them for not preventing their infant daughter's death. Meanwhile, Irish-immigrant vampire Remmick shelters from Choctaw vampire hunters with a married Klansmen couple, whom he turns into vampires.
  
  On the joint's opening night, Sammie, Delta Slim, and Pearline – a singer with whom Sammie becomes enamored – perform on stage. Sammie's music is transcendent, unknowingly summoning spirits of both past and future to join the crowd. However, the performance also attracts Remmick and his vampire thralls, who offer money and music in exchange for entry. Smoke, suspicious, refuses. The twins realize that their patrons' reliance on company scrip makes it impossible for the joint to be profitable. Reasoning with Stack that the outside income is necessary, Mary meets Remmick outside, where she is turned. Returning inside, she seduces and fatally bites Stack. Sammie and Smoke discover them; Smoke shoots Mary, but she is unaffected and escapes. Outside, Remmick turns Cornbread.
  
  Smoke closes the joint early; as the patrons and Bo leave, the vampires turn them. Stack revives as a vampire, but flees after Annie repels him with pickled garlic juice. Annie realizes their assailants are vampires and tells the survivors how to deter and defeat them, and that killing Remmick will not revert his thralls back to humans. Although Remmick shares his thralls' memories, their personalities remain intact.
  
  Still unable to enter the joint, Remmick promises to leave in exchange for Sammie, whose musical skills he wants to use to summon the spirits of his lost community. He reveals that Hogwood heads the local Klan and plans to attack the joint at dawn, and then invites the survivors to join him as his thralls, saying that vampirism offers immortality and freedom from persecution. They refuse, and Remmick threatens to attack the Chows' daughter Lisa at their home.
  
  Enraged by the threat, Grace invites the vampires into the joint, and a fight ensues. Grace, Bo, Annie, and Delta Slim are killed as a result, while Mary escapes and Remmick turns Pearline. Smoke fights and defeats Stack, and then assists Sammie in defeating Remmick and his thralls, who are all incinerated by the light of the sunrise. Smoke sends Sammie home before he kills Hogwood and his men, but is fatally shot. He sees the spirits of Annie and their daughter as he dies. Meanwhile, despite his father's pleas to seek salvation, Sammie travels to Chicago and becomes a successful blues musician.
  
  Sixty years later, an elderly Sammie is visited by an ageless Stack and Mary after performing at his blues club. Stack reveals that Smoke spared him at the joint on the condition that Sammie would live in peace. After declining the couple's offer of immortality, Sammie performs for them. As they leave, Sammie admits that despite being haunted by that fateful night, until the violence, it was the greatest day of his life. Stack agrees, since it was the last time he saw Smoke or the sun, and the only time they were all truly free.
  
  In 1932, identical twins and World War I veterans Smoke and Stack Moore return to Clarksdale, Mississippi, after years spent working for the Chicago Outfit. Using money stolen from gangsters, they purchase a sawmill from racist landowner Hogwood to start a juke joint for the local black community. Their cousin Sammie, an aspiring guitarist, joins them despite his pastor father Jedidiah's warnings that blues music is supernatural.
  
  Stack meets his white-passing ex-girlfriend Mary, who resents Stack for abandoning her out of protection. The twins recruit pianist Delta Slim as a performer, local Chinese shopkeeper couple Grace and Bo Chow as suppliers, field worker Cornbread as bouncer, and Smoke's partner Annie as cook. Annie believes her Hoodoo practices kept the twins safe, but Smoke doubts them for not preventing their infant daughter's death. Meanwhile, Irish-immigrant vampire Remmick shelters from Choctaw vampire hunters with a married Klansmen couple, whom he turns into vampires.
  
  On the joint's opening night, Sammie, Delta Slim, and Pearline – a singer with whom Sammie becomes enamored – perform on stage. Sammie's music is transcendent, unknowingly summoning spirits of both past and future to join the crowd. However, the performance also attracts Remmick and his vampire thralls, who offer money and music in exchange for entry. Smoke, suspicious, refuses. The twins realize that their patrons' reliance on company scrip makes it impossible for the joint to be profitable. Reasoning with Stack that the outside income is necessary, Mary meets Remmick outside, where she is turned. Returning inside, she seduces and fatally bites Stack. Sammie and Smoke discover them; Smoke shoots Mary, but she is unaffected and escapes. Outside, Remmick turns Cornbread.
  
  Smoke closes the joint early; as the patrons and Bo leave, the vampires turn them. Stack revives as a vampire, but flees after Annie repels him with pickled garlic juice. Annie realizes their assailants are vampires and tells the survivors how to deter and defeat them, and that killing Remmick will not revert his thralls back to humans. Although Remmick shares his thralls' memories, their personalities remain intact.
  
  Still unable to enter the joint, Remmick promises to leave in exchange for Sammie, whose musical skills he wants to use to summon the spirits of his lost community. He reveals that Hogwood heads the local Klan and plans to attack the joint at dawn, and then invites the survivors to join him as his thralls, saying that vampirism offers immortality and freedom from persecution. They refuse, and Remmick threatens to attack the Chows' daughter Lisa at their home.
  
  Enraged by the threat, Grace invites the vampires into the joint, and a fight ensues. Grace, Bo, Annie, and Delta Slim are killed as a result, while Mary escapes and Remmick turns Pearline. Smoke fights and defeats Stack, and then assists Sammie in defeating Remmick and his thralls, who are all incinerated by the light of the sunrise. Smoke sends Sammie home before he kills Hogwood and his men, but is fatally shot. He sees the spirits of Annie and their daughter as he dies. Meanwhile, despite his father's pleas to seek salvation, Sammie travels to Chicago and becomes a successful blues musician.
  
  Sixty years later, an elderly Sammie is visited by an ageless Stack and Mary after performing at his blues club. Stack reveals that Smoke spared him at the joint on the condition that Sammie would live in peace. After declining the couple's offer of immortality, Sammie performs for them. As they leave, Sammie admits that despite being haunted by that fateful night, until the violence, it was the greatest day of his life. Stack agrees, since it was the last time he saw Smoke or the sun, and the only time they were all truly free.