I don't think I have ever been as underwhelmed by a high concept horror film as much as I was with this one. Capitalizing on the superhero genre of today's culture, Brightburn is a supposed horror riff on said genre. A darker take on the classic Superman story, this film attempts to take a well-known premise and flip it on its head by making the expected hero a villainous murderer. While this movie was very effective in producing some great jump scares and shock value, there was such a lack of focus in the writing that ended up making this film appear incredibly lazy. James Gunn's involvement as a producer in this film is very evident and I am glad to see him back making some low-budget horror stories, but even his creative style could not bring this film out of its sheer mediocrity.
Tori (Elizabeth Banks) and Kyle (David Denman) Breyer are a rural couple living in the town of Brightburn, Kansas, who are having trouble conceiving until one night when a spaceship crashes in their yard with a baby boy on board. The couple decides to raise the boy as their own, naming him Brandon (Jackson A. Dunn); but as he gets older and realizes he has powers, his personality takes a turn for the worse as he decides to use these powers not for good, but for evil. This story is relatively familiar, as the classic tale of Superman provides the foundation for this film. However, the script written by Brian and Mark Gunn takes this classic tale and completely reverses it. Well, almost completely. My main issue with this film is how lazy its story actually was. While this film was unafraid to market itself as an "evil Superman" story, there was quite literally nothing else to the story that made it stand out as anything but that. All of the elements of that kind of story were included in this film, even down to the fact that the only thing that could hurt this alien was pieces of its homeworld (Brandon's kryptonite). This entire film was very predictable as it seems like a cheap way to kick off a new, dark, superhero universe. The least that these writers could have done is make me care about the characters. Since this story is so familiar to audiences, I feel like a re-write of the script or any other kind of creative input in its production would have been beneficial since it is painfully dull. This could have easily been an interesting exploration into parenthood or a psychological investigation into what makes a seemingly innocent kid turn bad, but this film missed out on all of those possible opportunities.
I also did not appreciate this film's ambiguity in regards to Brandon's evil turn. It is never quite made clear why Brandon becomes so sinister, whether it be some form of possession or just a mental snap, and the characterization of him does not make any sense at all. Despite its failed execution, I did love the production value of this film. With only a meager budget of around $7 million, this crew did manage to at least make an entertaining horror film. And despite the script not making me care at all about these characters, the whole cast definitely puts in their all and definitely deliver some great performances. This film is the perfect kind to watch when you need some cheap jump scares and a tense environment, which thankfully was accomplished very well. Yarovesky's direction might not be the most stylistic or original, but he was absolutely able to make me feel squirmish, especially as Brandon was flying around at super speed in his goofy, octopus mask. The element of this horror film that kept me engaged the most, however, were the grotesque and graphic scenes. While that may seem a bit neanderthal to be most entertained by the violence, it was mostly the way that they were paced out. This film is directed fairly well and paces out these scenes within the context of the story very well. The movie would cut from a woman having a piece of glass stuck in her eye to a sweeter and more naive scene of Tori having hope in her son. Then the movie would cut from a man choking on his own blood after shattering his jaw to Kyle sharing a fun dad-son day with Brandon. While this definitely makes the parents seem slightly ignorant to the fact that their son is a vile murderer, it at least provided a fun dynamic to watch.
Brightburn is, unfortunately, such a waste of potential for an interesting idea. Even though its premise makes it seem like a money grab, at least it was decently entertaining. Not to mention the eye-rolling inclusion of Billie Eilish's "bad guy" during the epilogue sequence, but that's beside the point. I would still recommend this film, however, as it succeeds in being terrifying but disappoints in providing anything new to the genre like it had promised.
My Rating: ★★½
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