Is ‘Sinners’ Really a Horror Movie? Leigh Whannell Says SYBAU
“The genre can’t get any respect.”
updated on
One of the most popular criticisms of any successful horror movie is that it is not “actually” a horror movie. This is weird because “horror” is just a category, not an accolade a movie has to earn or any kind of commentary on quality. A genre is just a quick way of categorizing a movie that conveys basic information about style and plot. Horror movies are intended to scare/upset the audience. That’s all the label means. But for some reason, horror fans love to gatekeep.
Recently on the social media app Bluesky, one user argued that one of 2025’s biggest horror movies, Sinners, is not actually a horror movie. This drew criticism from Leigh Whannell, a horror writer, actor, producer and director known for horror movies like Saw (2004), Insidious (2007) and most recently Wolf Man (2025). Whannell lamented the lack of respect the genre gets, which includes the “is it really horror?” conversation.
A producer for legendary horror movie The Thing (1982), Stuart Cohen, happened to see the conversation and chimed in, adding in a personal story about how people seem to not think rationally about the word “horror”.
Other users shared reasons they think movie fans have such a hard time accepting that so many horror movies are in fact… horror movies:
Some fans drew parallels to the conversation around “elevated horror”. The phrase can be considered a condescending way to refer to well made horror movies — as if quality is something out of the norm for the genre. Even Jordan Peele, whose films are often cited as examples of “elevated horror” dislikes the term, saying the label is “a trap”.
For whatever reason, horror generates conversations like this whereas no one really cares to debate other genres in the same way. You don’t see people saying The Brutalist isn’t “really” a drama or that Caught Stealing is an “elevated action movie” because it also deals with the protagonist’s grief. “Horror” is uniquely criticized and gatekept, especially when the genre produces a hit like Sinners.
Further reading:
- Here’s What Mike Flanagan Has to Say About ‘Sinners’
- Jordan Peele Says He Doesn’t Make ‘Elevated Horror’
