Brightburn Film Review

Directed by David Yarovesky

Starring Elizabeth Banks, David Denman, Jackson A Dunn

Rated R for horror violence/bloody images, and language

The most famous superhero, Superman, has a very famous origin story. Born on the planet Kyprton, Kal-El crashed into Kansas and grew up on a farm. While becoming a young man, Clark discovers his powers and decides to use them for good. 2019’s Brightburn explores this idea but with a twist, what if Superman came to Earth and decided to use his powers for destruction.

Brightburn is a horror film in which a young teenager, Brandon Breyer (played by Jackson A Dunn) discovers he harvests dangerous powers and soon starts to kill citizens of his small hometown. The film stars Elizabeth Banks and David Denman as Brandon’s parents who soon realize that their son may be a psychotic killer with super powers. As a horror movie, it plays it safe with the predictable jump scares. Yes, there are genuine jump scares but they are cheap jump scares . A clear example is a jump scare at the beginning of the film with one character trying to find another character in a barn. It’s been done before in previous horror films, it is nothing new.

The biggest mistake Brightburn makes is not exploring its interesting plot. A teenager with super powers killing people is a very intriguing idea but its just very basic. There was a perfect opportunity to have character development. The Beyer family were a regular family until a series of events breaks them apart. The screenplay could have showed the family slowly breaking apart, becoming more and more dysfunctional due to Brandon’s actions and mysterious emotions. It seems very sudden when the family does break down. Brightburn is a horror film, but having family drama would have been a welcomed change to the horror film genre. Instead it seems like the run of the mill horror film.

All of the actors do a good job with the material given, but the characters they play have some very questionable actions . For example, how did the sheriff of Brightburn jump to the conclusion of Brandon being the one behind the murders? What was Brandon’s uncle plan when he decided to drive to… well it’s never explained. It is questions like these that make the screenplay lazy and not well fleshed out.

Brightburn does have a very interesting idea but it is not executed very well. It does miss many opportunities that would have made Brightburn stand out from the other regular horror films. The film is an average horror film with some decent scares and gruesome images but in the end Brightburn feels like a let down with its compelling story.

2.5/4