As a Moments subpage, all spoilers are unmarked as per policy. You Have Been Warned.
- In the opening, we see Sammie stumble back from the night's massacre, traumatized by the horrors he witnessed and seeking comfort. But what does his father do when his own son enters the church? Tries to turn him into another sermon for their congregation, showing little true concern for his child's well-being. No wonder Sammie ends up leaving him by the end of the film.
- Smoke buys a small bouquet of flowers from Bo and Grace before going to Annie's. Before he even speaks to his ex-lover, he lays the bouquet at a tiny grave with a child's handprint, gently telling his baby that her papa's here.
- When Smoke and Annie speak for the first time in six years, Annie rebukes his claim of never having seen any magical or unexplainable phenomena in his travels because she's been keeping him safe from afar with her mojo bags, incense, and other spells...but when Smoke merely asks why her magic couldn't save their infant daughter, a stunned Annie can only admit with tangible sadness that she just doesn't know.
- When Slim is riding in the car with Stack and Sammie, he recounts a story about a good friend of his getting lynched by a white mob. As he finishes, he immediately starts channeling his pain into a beat for a Blues song. It's all he can do to stop himself from crying.
- Grace faces her husband. All night, she's fretted about sending him out to the car alone, and when he approaches the doorway, her fears are confirmed. Remmick uses his power over Bo to torment her, mining his memories to make a veiled rape threat against her in Chinese and threatening to add Lisa to his "family" if he doesn't get Sammie. Then the vampires sing an even darker reprise of "Pick Poor Robin Clean", and from the window, Grace sees Bo send her a kiss. The grief of it all is too much for her to bear, and against the protestations of the others, she decides to go down fighting; she dies while killing Bo, and she'll never know whether her daughter was spared from the vampires.
- When Mary confronts Stack at the juke joint and asks him why he left her without saying a word. Stack gets deadly serious and gives her a gutting Anguished Declaration of Love, saying that he loves her and thinks about her every day, but he wanted to give her a better life than what he could give her and that he doesn't think their love could last, given the incredibly racist time they live in. Mary even looks genuinely moved by Stack's confession.
- Stack's death. He was having sex with the woman he loved, not knowing that she was a vampire and she ends up feeding on him. An infuriated Smoke catches her in the act and shoots her immediately, but she survives and flees. Smoke futilely attempts to save Stack, but it's too late and he bleeds to death. Smoke's reaction is particularly hard to take, as he can only sit in shock as the reality sets in that his beloved brother is gone. It only gets worse when Stack becomes a vampire and falls under Remmick's thrall.
- As Stack is bleeding out in his brother's lap, it's clear both brothers know what's happening. Stack's last words are to tell Smoke how scared he is, and that he loves him.
- Annie getting bitten by Stack and forcing Smoke to kill her so she doesn't come back as a vampire is heart-wrenching.
- Just after she's bitten she realises who her killer is and moans "Not you," in horror, since she's not only in mortal peril of becoming a vampire and losing her loved ones in the afterlife, it's a loved one in this life who's trying to force it upon her.
- Smoke begs desperately not to have to do it and is flat out weeping, but Annie reminds him of his promise and begs him in turn, until he agrees and tells her he loves her one last time.
- Annie’s death even causes Stack and Mary, who both became malicious vampires, to snap out of it and express shock and sadness after seeing Smoke stake her through the chest (with Mary letting out a very agonized, very heart-wrenching “ANNIE!!!” right as it happens). Both of them were eager to have Smoke and Annie living together alongside them forever, and now they're forced to witness the brutal consequences of Remmick's warping their good desires play out on Smoke. Mary's seemingly so devastated by the loss (and regaining some of her free will because Remmick is distracted in the melee) she flees outright into the night, which later results in her being one of the few survivors of the joint, though evidently forced to deal with her grief and loss on her own from the rest of the night. Stack meanwhile, sticks around to fight Smoke and still turn him, but it's tainted by his sadness over their mutual loss and the realisation that his brother would prefer death over being turned like him. At one point, Stack has a chance to bite Smoke's neck whilst grappling with him, but noticeably seems to struggle to do so. It could be because of Annie's mystical tote bag around Smokes neck affecting him, or because Remmick's focus on Sammie means that enough of the man Stack was is reasserting itself through his grief, struggling with the predator inside his mind and soul. (This gets even worse when you remember Smoke's assertion that Stack is "the best part of [me]" and refusal to be separated from Stack's body. Being parted is the single most traumatic thing that could happen to the twins—and it happens twice. Stack could theoretically survive for all eternity as a vampire, so although he can still see Smoke again if he's killed or chooses suicide, it's going to be a long, long time.)
- Slim struggles to prove himself as a reliable member of the gang to the other characters due to his alcoholism. Smoke asks incredulously how Cornbread decided to trust him with watching the door while he took a bathroom break, and Slim asks if he thinks he can't handle it. Smoke doesn't answer, but the way Slim asks the question makes plain he is offended that Smoke doesn't trust him enough to do his (temporary) job. Later, Slim makes an accurate observation of Remmick's horde and Grace snaps at him that he's probably too drunk to see clearly. Slim solemnly says he isn't drunk, and angrily tells her to watch her mouth. Slim finally puts all doubt to rest with his last act: knowing as an old, drunk man he's not going to last long, he decides to make his last moments of life worth it by buying the others time to run, slitting his wrist to attract the horde to him. He had previously propped up Sammie before his performance, implicitly Passing the Torch to him as the next generation of great, black blues players, and now he makes one last play to try to ensure the survival of said next generation; even as he, Smoke and Pearline are escaping upstairs, Sammie is brokenly calling out for Slim, a man he only knew for one day but whom he's already mourning. Slim dies without knowing who will get away if anybody, but he still bought the crew precious seconds even as he is violently torn apart.
- When Pearline gets bitten by Remmick, Sammie lets out an anguished "No!", which is especially heartbreaking. She knows that she's doomed and will soon turn and uses her last moments of life to beg him to run; the next time we see her, she's become one of Remmick's thralls.
- A very sad Call-Back. The first time we see them, Stack is rolling a cigarette for Smoke. At the end, Smoke, all alone, tries to roll a cigarette before his shootout with the Klan, but he can't because his hands are shaking too badly. (There are several shots of his hands shaking before this, implying Smoke got hand tremors from the Great War and Stack silently took over any tasks the tremors would make difficult.)
- Also, as he sits there, the scene intercuts with Smoke remembering moments from earlier in the day as the brothers and their friends arrive at the Juke Joint and begin setting it up. Everyone seems to be happy while they work, smiling, laughing, and generally just enjoying themselves. All of these people are now dead, murdered by an undead psychopath and transformed into his slaves. Smoke almost appears to be tearing up as he remembers them.
- Smoke settling down on the ground after suffering lethal gunshot wounds during his showdown with corrupt local officials and Klan members, taking off the protective mojo bag Annie gave him, and preparing to die peacefully, now knowing she and the child they lost will be waiting for him in the afterlife. The vision he sees of Annie dressed in white is calmly breastfeeding even in the midst of chaos; she calls to him by his given name and teasingly chides him to put his cigarette out so he can hold the baby. His life of violence and strife is finally over. His final words are an echo of what he said when he visited the tiny little grave: "Papa's here."
- For all that the twins' dream of opening up a juke joint was motivated by a need to make money and unload some hot merchandise from their Chicago days, they clearly put a lot of love into the endeavor, enlisting the help of old friends and neighbors to make over the old building and furnish good food for their guests. Between the bloodthirsty vampires and the local Klan looking to turn a black-owned nightclub into (in vampire!Bert's words) "a killing floor", all that hard work is wasted; as things go to hell, that loss is underscored by flashbacks of happier times just hours earlier, with friends and family helping out to cook and decorate.
- Even worse is the moment it sinks in for the brothers that even if the Klan or the vampires had never shown up, the bar was doomed because of a factor neither realized: rather than actual cash, the majority of folks in town are paid in company scrip. Meaning they have, at best, two months before they run out of liquor and food and never make any profit from this endeavor.
- While Stack and the elderly Sammie part ways amicably for presumably the last time, the two still look back on that fateful night somberly. Sammie says he still has nightmares of that night, while Stack says that it was the last time he saw his brother and the sun, and the final time he truly felt free.
- Stack and Mary gracefully accept that Sammie doesn't want to be a vampire, but it's clear they're both genuinely saddened by him rejecting their offer, since he's now an old man who probably doesn't have much longer. They still have each other, but both hoped he'd join them in immortality so they could all be a family again. With Smoke and Annie long gone, Sammie is the only remaining link to their human lives.Mary: (as she and Stack leave) Take care, little Sammie.
- It's also quite sad when Sammie declines the offer to be a vampire, with his heartbreaking words driving it home:
- Horrific as he is, there more than a twinge of hurt in Remmick's polite-yet-pleading desire to hear Sammie play for himself."I just want to see my people again."
- Remmick in general. He may be a mass-murdering vampire, yet deep down, he's a sad, lonely man who just wants to be reunited with his own family and community. It's just the way he goes about it is extremely twisted and psychotic.
- His decision to recruit Black people specifically and talk about them as making his new family gives the impression that he hasn't only chosen them because they're easy targets but also that he sees them as having something in common with him and his people. Whatever it was that got the Chocktaw hunting him, he may have started with them, as another oppressed minority he could have felt kinship with. Of course, this sense of sympathy doesn't actually extend to considering what they want.
- His "Rocky Road to Dublin" singalong, while both terrifying and awesome, is also incredibly sad, seen in comparison to Sammie's previous rendition of "I Lied To You"—Sammie is surrounded by his real community, both his living friends and family and his ancestors and descendants, having a genuinely good time, whereas Remmick is surrounded only by people he's murdered and mind-controlled into a grotesque imitation of love, even having them converge as the song ends to embrace him and slap his back. Some of the choreography makes him look like he's in the same pose as the illustration of the fili, the Irish bard, shown at the beginning of the film, almost like he's trying to be one...and he can never, ever have that.
- Hours ago, these people were all celebrating their own cultures together at the juke joint. Now that cultural melting pot has all been overwritten by one song, one dance, and one culture. As entertaining as their dance is, it also represents a budding cultural crossroads robbed of its individuality and traditions, all so that one man might try and recreate some semblance of his.
- Even before that, when he has Bert and Joan sing "Wild Mountain Thyme" with him, there's an incredibly sad irony to them using a heartfelt folk song all about a real community coming together to celebrate summer as glorified bait to instead force others into their group.
- When he's staked and left out in the open in full view of the rising sun, you can hear "Rocky Road to Dublin" somberly playing as Remmick realizes he's about to die, as though in his final moments Remmick is thinking of everything he's lost before he fully accepts his fate and goes up into a flaming tornado.
- Just the fact that there were so many other ways everyone could have got what they wanted - he could have accepted Mary's invitation and saved his hunger for the rest of the KKK, tried being sincere about his past of discrimination and his desire to reconnect with his family, or simply asked Sammie to play music for him in another place on his own time. (Or, heck, just wait for Sammie to get another gig—as an immortal being who seems to be pretty loaded, Remmick could easily attend as many of Sammie's shows at other venues as he wants, but he insists on taking Sammie for himself.) But his own greed and his twisted savior complex ruined things for everyone involved.
- All the friends and relatives of everyone who died at the Juke Joint will never know what happened to their loved ones. Lisa is now a orphan, Therese is widowed while heavily pregnant; a large part of a community has simply been wiped out, with no trace. The Klan and Smoke clearly died fighting each other, but that won't explain where everyone else's bodies went.
