Brightburn (2019)
What if a child from another world crash-landed on Earth, but instead of becoming a hero to mankind, he proved to be something far more sinister? With Brightburn, the visionary filmmaker of Guardians of the Galaxy and Slither presents a startling, subversive take on a radical new genre: superhero horror.
CREDITS
Directed: David Yaroveski
Starring: Elizabeth Banks, David Denman, Jackson A. Dunn, and more.
Rated: R
Runtime: 90 min
SPOILERS BELOW
Question: What if Superman Was Evil?
The answer to that is simple…You get Brightburn. What is Brightburn, you ask? Well, it’s quite possibly one of the most enjoyable horror flicks I’ve seen for a very long time. Some critics and audiences may not agree with me, but I feel it was everything I was hoping for. And what’s more, this movie truly managed to fool me with its “twist” ending. That’s not happened since Christopher Nolan’s The Prestige – which I highly recommend, by the way. If you’re reading this blog, chances are you have at least heard of Brightburn or have seen the trailers. I’m giving this movie the true Revenge of the Show treatment: I’m reviewing it with a heaping helping of sarcasm but in written form. So, if you were curious about this one, but weren’t brave enough to just dive right in, here’s a breakdown of the movie with what I thought of it in more detail (but be prepared for major spoilers).
Most people know Superman’s origin story. It’s been told and told and told, and so, I’ll tell you once again. You have a dying planet far from Earth; desperate parents wanting to save their only child; a spaceship with said child sent to Earth in an effort to do said saving; a childless couple from Kansas, who happen to be farmers, find the alien baby and raise him as their own; alien baby grows up as a human with kind, compassionate, and virtuous parents to teach him right from wrong; alien boy learns he’s got extraordinary abilities and discovers the truth about himself and his old spaceship hidden in the barn; alien boy eventually goes on a journey of self-discovery; alien man makes contact with a Holographic interface version of his father and learns his people’s history and everything he could possibly want to know about his planet; alien man decides to use his abilities for the betterment of mankind and becomes the most powerful superhero on the planet. Sound familiar? It should.
Now, Brightburn’s super-powered alien shares quite a few similarities with good ol’ Kal-El’s backstory. They do not show, nor is there any mention of alien parents. However, we are shown a couple that farms in Kansas who have tried for a baby without success, and right before they’re about to try again, there’s a huge crash. During the opening credits, we are given a fun little montage of a baby growing up with our former childless couple. We’re also shown little glimpses of just how different the new parents are from Jonathan and Martha Kent. Don’t get me wrong, they’re not bad people, by any means. They’re just more real than the practically-perfect-in-every-way Kent family. Both his Mom Tori (played by Elizabeth Banks) and Dad Kyle (played by David Denman) swear openly, and in front of their alien son, Brandon Breyer.” His dad hunts, drinks, tells dirty jokes, and smacks his wife on the rear regularly – and without saying “good game;” what’s up with that? His mom wears tight jeans, 80’s band tees, and wears no pants with 80’s band tees around the house. Again, not bad people, just more real. More in line with the rest of us. More human.
Where Brandon’s story begins to split – and split drastically – from our beloved Clarkie boy’s, is in the discovery of his abilities. It begins just before his 12th birthday…? Found-day? Crash-day? Meh, you get the point. Brandon begins to hear a voice in his sleep – a deep, creepy-sounding voice speaking in some unknown language – and it causes Brandon to talk in his sleep, sleepwalk, sleep seizure, and sleep levitate…I’m not sure those last two are real things, but just go with it. During one of those eventful nights, he winds up in the barn trying to tear open a padlock secured trapdoor. Brandon’s mother, obviously upset or even afraid, tries to stop him, trying to wake him. Which he suddenly does, not knowing where he was or how he got there. Our adorable, kind, and loving Brandon then starts to change. First, it’s just his attitude, which gets shrugged off as hormones and puberty. But ever the concerned parents, mom and dad decide to search his room. Perhaps it was because he mercilessly massacred all of their chickens during one of his sleepwalking episodes?
So, what do they find tucked under his mattress, a stack of cutout pictures of girls in lingerie…along with some very graphic images of human organs and gore…Wait, what? Yeah, you read that right. Go back and read it again, if you don’t believe me. The Breyer family then decide to go on a camping trip to get away, and also maybe to provide dear old dad an opportunity to give his pubescent son “the talk.” Denman’s performance during this “talk” – which happens while they’re hunting, by the way – is so perfectly awkward it’s almost painful to watch. He performs admirably but inevitably ends up wording things in such a way that makes our growing alien boy believe it’s okay to use his superpowers to spy on a girl from his class in her room at night. Which he does by traveling over 30 miles away in mere seconds and flying outside her window. Next, comes the violence, and damn it’s violent. Naturally, the girl is spooked and doesn’t treat him very nicely at school the next day, but Brandon takes this as a sign that he should completely obliterate all the bones in her hand and wrist when she’s forced by a teacher to help him up off the ground.
From here, things begin to spiral out of control. The girl’s mother is furious – rightfully so – and demands that he be placed in jail, but only after she issues a series of insults – directed at Brandon – so obscene that I wanted to reach in and slap her. Unsurprisingly, she becomes our super-powered alien’s first victim…the girl doesn’t count. She’ll live, she just won’t ever be able to use that hand again. The scene is like something from a nightmare, and I’m not ashamed to admit I had to look away for the part where the girl’s mom gets a decent-sized shard of glass stuck in her eye. I don’t do eye stuff…screw that noise. But I’ll also admit, it was a pretty freaking sweet scene otherwise. Brandon now dons his mask which is a little reminiscent of Batman’s nemesis, Scarecrow but of even poorer quality. I didn’t mind it though. After all, a 12-year-old-boy supposedly made it – and the matching cape – out of some curtains or maybe a rug like some kind of Disney fairy tale princess. Just because he’s a super-powered alien doesn’t mean he can somehow magically sew really well. He’s got invulnerability, heat vision, and super strength, not seamstress fingers. I honestly thought it made everything that much creepier.
After all this starts happening – people and chickens disappear; Brandon’s uncle gets in a horrific accident (by which I mean, Brandon flies up and drops him and his truck from 30 feet in the air causing one of the most graphic death scenes I’ve seen since the Saw movies); a strange symbol is found at multiple crime scenes; Brandon’s bad attitude – Brandon’s dad starts putting all the pieces together. And all of those pieces form a completed jigsaw puzzle featuring a picture of a giant hand pointing at his adopted alien son – who he disowns at the drop of a hat – while his mom is still in complete denial. In an effort to turn her against her precious little boy, mentions that he hasn’t ever been sick, that he’s never bled, nor has he gotten so much as a papercut before.
Ironically, Brandon has another one of his “night terrors,” where this time he managed to rip open the trapdoor hiding his – wait for it – spaceship; and Tori finds him hovering over it, whispering in that same strange language that only he’s been hearing. When she calls out to Brandon, he jerks awake and falls, cutting himself on a piece of metal from his ship. Murder weapon, anyone? It was Colonel Mom, with the hunk of alien metal, in the barn! Brandon then has a mini-meltdown after Tori tells him the truth about his spaceship and origin – during which, he finally manages to translate the repeated alien phrase coming from his ship, saying “Take the world” for only us to hear. Brandon seems to be over his meltdown by the next morning, but is it possibly because of the way he interprets his mother’s speech about him being special? Brandon now believes he’s superior to humanity and wants to usher in a new age where the world is at his mercy.
By then, Kyle is fully convinced that Brandon is the source of all the weird and horrible things going on, and he decides to take matters into his own hands by going on a hunting trip with Brandon a long ways away from home…wait, wasn’t it a hunting trip that kinda set all this off in the first place? Well, maybe dad thinks it’ll come full circle and he’ll be able to resolve this story with his rifle. Unfortunately for Kyle, Brandon doesn’t take too kindly to cheap shots to the back of his head. You know, his bulletproof head. At least Kyle died doing what he loved, attempting to murder his adopted son…Well, I was originally gonna go with hunting, but whatever.
Now, we go to Tori, who is approached by the suspicious sheriff who shows her the strange symbol he’s found at the scene of several strange occurrences – the one on the movie posters, two letter ‘B’s back to back. She then searches Brandon’s room again and finds his creepy journal filled with that same symbol and poorly drawn pictures of him flying in his supervillain costume. One of which, where he’s holding a cartoonish rendition of his uncle’s truck suspended above the road. Tori flips out and calls her husband to admit how wrong she was about everything, but instead of Kyle, it’s Brandon and now he knows that Mom has discovered his evil ways. He tells her that he’ll be there shortly, and mom barely has time to call the sheriff and scream before Brandon, donning his costume and hovering 50 feet in the air outside the window, comes and destroys most of the house.
***MAJOR SPOILERS AHEAD***
The sheriff and one of his deputies get there just in time to be torn to shreds by an enraged Brandon, but they manage to distract him just enough to give Tori some time to slip off to the barn and break off a piece of that KitKat…er…I mean a piece of sharp metal from Brandon’s spaceship. I did provide you with some foreshadowing earlier, remember? Brandon quickly catches up to Mom, but then she gives him a speech about how she’ll always love him, how he’ll always be her baby boy, all the while slowly pulling the metal shard from the waistband of her jeans. He goes to her and embraces her in a loving hug, and just as she’s about to drive that sucka’ home, Brandon reaches out, grabs her arm, and squeezes hard. Instead of just melting her face off, or snapping her head off, or ripping her heart off…I mean out…or any of the million and one ways he could choose to kill her, Brandon decides to give her a scenic look of Brightburn County from several hundred feet in the air. Then he conveniently forgets that she can’t fly by herself.
So, what’s the big twist I was talking about? I totally assumed – like most of you probably would have, and like I’m assuming Peter Gunn (Producer), David Yarovesky (Director), and Brian and Mark Gunn (Writers) were trying to get you to assume – that Elizabeth Banks would successfully end little Brandon with that spaceship fragment. Everything was leading up to that. From the very moment they revealed his “kryptonite,” I assumed mom would end up killing him. And that final touching scene where she professes that she’ll always love him – which I felt the character truly meant – was so perfect for a follow up with a bit of heavy sobbing and screaming “WHY?” to the night sky. Who would have assumed it would end otherwise? I mean, who would make a movie where the supervillain wins and gets to run rampant, kill a bunch of people, and destroy a bunch of stuff? Megamind doesn’t count, as that’s more of a redemption story. Well, Brigthburn is that movie, and I feel it’s all the better for it.
*No more Spoilers from here*
Also, feel free to stay for a bit during the credits, as there is a killer mid-credit scene. Basically, it’s a great opening for some possible sequels down the road; an evil Justice league, kind of thing. Just don’t bother staying for a post-credit scene. So, all in all, I feel Brightburn did a successful job as a horror flick. It had plenty of suspense, a good number of jump-scare moments, and left you with a sinking feeling in your gut during most of the film. I did feel it was more than a little heavy on the gore, like a Saw or Hostel level of nastiness that’ll have you cringing or even turning away from the screen. However, it was also a fresh take on a familiar story, and I really liked the concept and execution of it. So, it may not be theater worthy for everyone, but it’s definitely worth a watch on Redbox or on one of the many streaming services out there (whether renting or buying). That way you can skip ahead through that nasty eye mutilation crap…so gross.
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