In case you hadn’t noticed, ‘superhero’ movies are everywhere these days. However, just when you think you’ve seen every type of action star get bitten by every kind of radioactive insect and go on to defeat every last computer-generated horde of alien invaders in an epic battle over New York, along comes ‘Brightburn’ and totally throws the genre on its head.
I know the ‘Blade’ trilogy could probably have fitted into the ‘superhero/horror’ genre, but, let’s face it, not many superhero films go that way. ‘Brightburn’ takes the tried and tested tale of Superman, i.e. an alien child raised on Earth who ends up doing great things, and completely turns it on its head. Basically, ‘Brightburn’ starts off along the same path as ‘Superman’ only the young child ends up not quite being the ‘saviour’ the human race is crying out for.
One night, a childless couple played by Elizabeth Banks and David Denman, think all their prayers are answered when a metal ‘pod’ lands in their small town American farm. However, around Brandon Breyer’s twelfth birthday, he starts showing a little more in the way of ‘changes’ than your average teen.
I could go on about how good Elizabeth Banks and David Denman are. They perfectly convey the ‘everyman’ couple and you’ll have no problems identifying with them and, of course, rooting for them when times get bad. They never seem to make any of those majorly-stupid decisions that characters in horror movies make where we – the audience – ends up just rolling out collective eyes. However, the real ‘standout’ performance goes you young Jackson A Dunn as Brandon. Sometimes when a film relies so heavily on a child actor they can come across as annoying and unbelievable. Not here. He rides the middle ground of being creepy and victimised, plus even a little conflicted at times when he doesn’t quite understand why he’s doing the things he is.
There are special effects here and there and they’re definitely no overused, therefore you’ll probably not notice that they’re hardly ‘top notch.’ There are times when you’ll definitely be able to tell if something has been added digitally. Plus I didn’t find it that scary for a horror. There’s a few ‘jump scares,’ but that’s about. Yet it does manage to ‘gross out’ on more than one occasion in terms of gore – I won’t spoil it for you, but it made me wince!
It’s also – what I consider – to be the perfect runtime for a film like this. It’s only about an hour and a half, therefore it never lags or gets tiring. Plus it never feels like there’s a load of ‘filler scenes’ been added to it just to pad out the runtime.
I guess it’s hard to say who this film is made for, as it falls in a genre that isn’t really that mainstream. If you’re a fan of superhero films and would like them to get a little bit darker and stray from the typical Marvel and DC ‘norm’ then you should definitely give this a try. Fans of straight horror should also give it a watch. I like to think this will develop a decent size cult following.
9/10 almost as perfect as The Godfather
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