Why Is ‘Sinners’ a Rare Box Office and Critical Success?

Weeks after its release, director Ryan Coogler’s period horror movie “Sinners” continues to attract large audiences.

After Hollywood endured a slow winter at the box office, the film has earned more than $280 million worldwide, according to the Hollywood Reporter – a rarity for original screenplays. It is also the only horror movie in 35 years of exit polling to earn an “A” grade from market research firm CinemaScore, and it has a 97% score on the review aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes.

Perhaps it shouldn’t come as a surprise that a movie from Coogler – the talented Black writer and director who was also the creative force behind “Black Panther” and “Creed” – would be both critically and commercially successful.

“We are often surprised that horror has an incredible audience reception, when, in fact, we have about a century of horror movies where we can have this very same conversation,” said Robin Means Coleman, a professor of media studies at the University of Virginia and an expert in Black horror films.

Robin Coleman, left, is an expert in Black horror films, while A.D. Carson is a professor of hip-hop at UVA. (Left, contributed photo; right, University Communications)

Coleman attributes the word-of-mouth success of “Sinners” to one simple fact: It’s a good movie. Combine that with Coogler’s track record and a star lead actor in Michael B. Jordan, and success seems inevitable. But audiences and reviewers seem shocked when a scary movie becomes popular, even though it’s a fairly common occurrence.

“Almost decade by decade, we have a film that captures folks’ imagination,” Coleman said, citing movies like “Night of the Living Dead” and “Blacula.” “Before ‘Sinners,’ it was ‘Get Out,’ but there is something really important and unique about ‘Sinners.’ It’s a deeply interdisciplinary film.”

“Sinners” tells the tale of Smoke and Stack, twin brothers who return to their hometown of Clarksdale, Mississippi, from Chicago in 1932 to open a juke joint. Tensions are high from the beginning, as Smoke and Stack buy their future juke joint from a leader of the local chapter of the Ku Klux Klan. As the movie progresses, it becomes clear the brothers have to fend off supernatural dangers in addition to the Klan.

“Sinners” spends about half its 2-hour, 17-minute runtime establishing its characters and their relationships to each other.

“The first half of the movie does feel like a drama, but we know that during this period in the Mississippi Delta, there’s danger for these folks around every corner,” whether from petty thieves or racist violence, Coleman said – and that’s before any vampires show up.