Film of the Week: Brightburn

This film asks and answers the question, what would Superman do if he turned against humanity? Brightburn gets as close to retelling Superman’s origin story as possible before diverting off course. We don’t know where the alien baby came from, what species he belongs to, and why they are channelling their intent on destroying Earth via the spaceship the baby crashed landed in, but what we do know is Superman could take over the world if he wanted to and there’s practically nothing we could do to stop him.

Blending horror and the superhero genre into one, this dramatic origin story to a conquer of worlds is every bit horror and every bit super, but none of the hero. Due to it being a rare genre, there wasn’t much that the filmmakers could do to divert from the clichés of the horror genre otherwise make it complicated. By keeping it simple, the unstoppable threat the boy achieves is felt via the superhero part of the genre, and the two do create a fair amount of decent jump scares which really do leave you on the edge of your seat. What I especially liked is how they introduced a weakness which the mother nearly used against him, but instead got the better of her, and became something the world was not prepared for. Only two people know of his weakness, and he killed them both.

With it being a horror, the deaths scenes could be ramped up to the max, to the point where I squirmed during two of the death scenes, actually closing my eyes during one of them – if they’re going to do horror, they’re going to do it properly.

Jackson A. Dunn plays the alien who is called Brandon, and he plays the part well. Upon discovering he has powers he quickly sets about testing them before realising he has many. Every power Superman has, he has, from super strength to flying. The film starts off with him being another Clark Kent before the spaceship activates. The mother, played by Elizabeth Banks, is a borderline stereotypical mother within the horror genre – when things start getting hairy, all she’s there to do is be the victim and scream. The dad, played by David Denman, does his best to stop things from developing, but fall victim when he does. David’s acting during the woods scene when his character discovers Brandon is bullet proof was the best scene in the film. The amount of emotions his character goes through during a short period of time must have been difficult to nail without taking a least a couple of attempts first.

In conclusion, we know what Superman is capable of if he turned bad – his powers are committed to memory by everyone at this point, so it’s easy enough to visualise what could happen if he turned bad, and there have been so many stories detailing when he does that Brightburn technically felt unoriginal as it’s just adding/adapting to what we already know, but by adding a strong dosage of horror into the mix creates just enough uniqueness required for us to be engaged and entertained.

Thanks for reading

Antony Hudson

(TonyHadNouns)