A mash-up of superhero and horror

Film review: Brightburn

MANILA, Philippines — When you think about it, the concept of mixing up the genres of superhero with horror films sounds so elementary, it’s a wonder that it took all this time for James Gunn and his creative team to bring it to the screen.

Gunn is the mastermind behind the Guardians of the Galaxy film franchise; and while David Yarovesky directs, the screenplay comes courtesy of brother Brian Gunn and their cousin Mark Gunn.

The film’s premise is deceptively simple. Tori Breyer (Elizabeth Banks) and husband Kyle (David Denman) live on a Kansas farm and have been longing for a child — which just hasn’t happened. One night, and this is straight out of Superman, a mysterious spaceship crashes on the farm, and the lone inhabitant is a newborn baby boy. Of course, Tori claims the child as her own, thinking it as some godsend.

It’s when the child named Brandon (Jackson Dunn) hits puberty, that the story truly gets underway, as all these twisted urges surface, and he discovers he’s in possession of disturbing superpowers — a page out of The Omen and Carrie, right?

So it’s the classic superhero origin trope, and the reimagining comes in the form of posing the question, “What if, rather than motivated to do noble things or save the world, this being in possession of superpowers is perverse, selfish, egotistical, and downright mean? What would happen?”

The jump scares are effective and they come with alarming regularity, upping the stakes like you’re in some vise-grip. It’s visceral, it’s bloody, it’s painful, and it still leaves a lot to make our imagination run ahead and visualize the worst — things that horror films should deliver on.

What also works is how they transform the superpowers into something malevolent — the wonderment of flying becomes ghostly and sinister, laser vision looks demonic, and Brandon’s super strength is used for nefarious and low-spirited purposes.

If I have to be critical of the film, it’s how they drop the ball for the finale. The CGI for this portion of the film lacks punch and is rather anticlimactic. And that’s a shame, as much of what precedes this finale has been pitch perfect. Hopefully, they correct this for the second installment as it’s obvious that’s the aspiration — to turn this into a film franchise of its own.

(Brightburn is now showing in cinemas.)