YMMV / Rosewood (1997)

• Angst Aversion: It's thought that Rosewood's dark story is one of the reasons it failed at the box office. Although people who have seen Rosewood generally agree it's a good film, it's also pretty grim and depressing given it's a true story about a peaceful, prosperous black community who were nearly wiped out by a racist white mob, based on a white woman's False Rape Accusation against a black man (partly to cover up her white lover's Domestic Abuse) and it's a Foregone Conclusion that the perpetrators got away with it; the movie also doesn't shy away from graphic depictions of harrowing violence. Even the film's writer Gregory Poirier and director John Singleton took note of this likely being a factor in its commercial failure.
  Poirier: Rosewood didn’t do much box office. The reviews were generally good, and Siskel and Ebert raved about it, but John [Singleton] was right; it was in many ways too difficult to watch, a chapter of American history most Americans don’t want to be confronted with.

---