PLOT: Twelve years after crash-landing into a farm and being adopted by its owners, a boy learns that not only is he from another planet, but he's been sent here to overtake the Earth.
REVIEW: When the first BRIGHTBURN trailer was officially released, the PR spin had a bold declaration: this film was a "startling, subversive take on a radical new genre: superhero horror." The ads have subsequently buoyed that position, touting the tagline "Evil Has Found its Superhero," as if we've never seen anything like this before. (Don't most superhero movies have evil superheroes?) We all know it's just creative marketing, but still; these proclamations captured the imaginations of fans of horror films and comic book movies alike.
We can now stop acting like BRIGHTBURN is some revolutionary melding of two disparate genres. In fact, we can stop calling it "superhero horror." BRIGHTBURN, for all intents and purposes, falls firmly into the Evil Kid subgenre of horror, bringing not much more new to it other than the fact this kid wears a cape, can fly and is not of this Earth. It's a sporadically amusing riff on the well-worn tale of parents who find out their child is a really bad seed, but if you're looking for something more than a nihilistic B movie, you'll come up wanting. For 90 minutes I was engaged just enough, but ultimately BRIGHTBURN barely leaves a mark.
The film's set-up steals unapologetically from the Superman origin story, as a strange craft crash lands on a farm belonging to lovable couple Tori and Kyle Breyer (Elizabeth Banks and David Denman, both charming), who – wouldn't you know it? – are desperate for a baby. As anyone would, they decide to keep the alien child and call it their own, but 12 years later, when the alien baby starts to go through what you might call puberty, it turns out the clandestine act of adopting a being from outer space wasn't such a good idea – nor was keeping the alien's UFO buried underneath the barn. That UFO remains sentient, you see, and goes about sending garbled instructions of terror to young Brandon, who quickly transforms from harmless little boy to spiteful messenger of destruction.
And this is where we get into complaints about potential. If it had a mind to, BRIGHTBURN really could have explored the Brandon character and made him a complex individual, as opposed to just a nightmare waiting to happen. He's a child of two worlds, if you will, and the film would have benefitted from showing Brandon as a kid who doesn't understand nor accept his fate as an evil being. Instead, writers Brian and Mark Gunn (and their brother James, acting as producer) pretty much immediately make Brandon the Bad Guy, spurred on by the messages from the creepy craft he arrived in, so we never really sympathize with this kid who suddenly discovers that he's a superpowered monster destined for bringing misery upon the world. It would be much more intriguing to see this take on young Clark Kent struggling with his identity and his tendencies for murder as opposed to fast-forwarding to Now He's Evil Young Clark Kent about 20 minutes into the running time.
It would also help if Brandon were a more charismatic figure, but as written he's barely anyone we even want to get to know. No offense meant to young actor Jackson A. Dunn, who does a decent enough job with the role he's given, but Brandon is never fully fleshed out enough for us to care about his journey one way or the other. As mentioned, the character turns so quickly to the dark side that we have no time to relate much to him or the scary metamorphosis he goes through, and pretty soon we begin to find Brandon a most objectionable figure. BRIGHTBURN is so seemingly intent on being a low-stakes horror movie that it forgets to give its main villain any meaningful dimensions.
Still, if we judge BRIGHTBURN on its merits as disposable Evil Kid fare, it works well enough. The horror and suspense sequences often have just enough tension to get under your skin a little, and there are a few decent jump scares. (The sound design is rather good.) The gore starts to pile up in the third act, and there's one gross-out moment so startling my jaw dropped. By the time it reaches its tragic, morose conclusion, BRIGHTBURN has tossed enough bitter chaos your way that you're sure to leave downcast and despondent, so I suppose it's a win for the horror side of the spectrum.
But I wanted more, there's no getting around it, so BRIGHTBURN as a whole suffers a little since it takes the easy way out and settles for less. But with expectations fully in check, a not-too-picky horror fan wanting some hard-R violence and mayhem might well find themselves a villain they can root for here.