Brightburn is the best horror movie that I’ve seen in quite some time and it has an amazingly simple and obvious concept: What if Superman was not a virtuous hero, but rather a psychopathic killer? We would all be fucked. That’s what would happen.
The plot is the Superman origin story. A spacecraft crashes, a farming couple discover a baby inside it and they decide to raise it as their own because they have been unable to have children of their own. As the child grows, he discovers that he has extraordinary powers. In fact, since this is basically Superman, he discovers that he has ALL the powers. Unfortunately, he’s also an evil little fucker and, instead of using his abilities to protect Earth, he decides to start slaughtering people and wants to take over the Earth.
I first want to acknowledge a common criticism of this film that I’m heard, and the complaint does have merit. There is very little character development here. The kid doesn’t really have a character arc. The film speeds to the point that he is around 12 or 13 years old and he is immediately evil. There is no ambiguity about him, there are no scenes of him contemplating the responsibilities of his powers, there is no complexity. From a screenwriting perspective, it does fall short in that regard.
With that in mind, I just don’t give a shit. Brightburn is a b-movie, and I use that term endearingly. It is purely a “What if?” exploitation film and it does a damn good job of it. The kid is creepy as fuck in his homemade costume and when he kills people, he kills the shit out of them. The movie does a great job of showing just how terrifying Superman would be if he was evil, and the results aren’t pretty. This is the goriest horror movie that I’ve seen in a while. He uses heat vision to melt faces, he rips off jaws, and there is even an eye trauma scene that made me think of Lucio Fulci’s Zombie. My biggest complaint about The Prodigy, the evil kid movie from earlier in the year, was that the kid never really did anything. This kid, on the other hand, fucks people up in freaking brutal ways. I also love that there is a scene of him flipping over a truck (with someone in it) that is a homage to the cover of Action Comics #1 (first appearance of Superman).
I also really liked the parents in this movie. Yes, they are in denial for awhile and should have caught on earlier (especially the mother). But once they realize what’s happening, they actually act the way I would expect people to respond to such a situation. I was nervous that they would go to the end hoping that they could make him good with the power of love. Nope. The father is having fucking none of this and both of them try to kill the kid. That is refreshing.
The performances are also great. The kid is a creepy little bastard and, before things really go south, you can tell that this kid just aint right by looking at his facial expressions. Elizabeth Banks is one of my favorite actresses, and also a very underrated actress, and she makes the role just sad enough that it remains believable. You do feel bad for her, but I also appreciate that the character isn’t completely oblivious. David Denman is basically still playing Roy from The Office, but he’s very good at playing the blue collar, everyman character. He’s also just the right level of funny without detracting from the fact that it’s a horror film.
Brightburn is a small-scale, b-horror movie that plays off of a high-concept premise. That puts it right into my wheelhouse and I loved it. I will say, though, that they need to leave it alone. The end of the movie threatened me with a much broader expansion of this world that would be completely unnecessary. I don’t need Brightburn League. But if you like gory horror movies and find the concept interesting, you should absolutely check this out.
And, aside from being a solid horror movie, this is still a better Superman movie than Man of Steel.
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