Brightburn

I heard about this film a little bit during its release, and film critic Mark Kermode talked about it on BBC News The Film Review, I had an idea of the concept of it, so I was looking forward to seeing what it had to offer. Basically, in 2006, in Brightburn, Kansas, a spaceship crash-lands on a farm owned by Tori (Elizabeth Banks) and Kyle Breyer (David Denman), who have been trying but failing to conceive a child.

Inside the ship they find an infant child, the couple adopt it as their own and name him Brandon. They hide the spaceship in the barn cellar and decide to hide the truth from him. Twelve years later, Brandon (Jackson A. Dunn) has been drawn to an alien message transmitting from the hidden ship. He sleepwalks to the barn and tries to open the locked cellar, but Tori stops him before he can do so.

The next day, whilst trying to mow the lawn, he struggles to start the lawnmower and inadvertently launches it into the air, tossing it far away. He approaches the overturned mower still running. Curious of his newfound abilities, he is shocked to find he can stop the turning blades with his hand. Brandon displays high intelligence in school, which other students tease him about, apart from the classmate Caitlyn (Emmie Hunter).

Brandon celebrates his twelfth birthday with his parents at the diner, where Tori’s mother Erica (Becky Wahlstrom) works as a waitress, along the parents’ friends Noah (Matt Jones) and Merilee McNichol (Meredith Hagner). Noah gives Brandon a hunting rifle, which Kyle refuses to let Brandon have.

Brandon becomes very angry at not having his gift, causing a scene, so Tori and Kyle take him home immediately. The next morning Kyle suspects there is something wrong with Brandon as he finds he chewed and mangled his fork. While Tori finds photos of lingerie and swimsuit models, surgical diagrams, and graphic photos of human organs in Brandon’s room.

Brandon, Kyle, and Tori take a camping trip, and Kyle attempts to talk to Brandon about sexual things, because he is exhibiting signs of puberty. Encouraged by his father’s talk, Brandon sneaks away from the campsite and travels to Caitlyn’s house, hiding in her room until she notices him. After returning home, Kyle observes the chickens in their coop terrified of Brandon, and later that night, finds they have been slaughtered and the door taken off. Kyle insists Brandon is responsible, but Tori insists it was an animal attack.

During an exercise at school, Caitlyn accused Brandon of being a pervert, so he crushes her hand in retaliation. He is suspended and required to meet with his aunt Merilee, the school counsellor, but Erica demands that Brandon be arrested. That night at home, Brandon is drawn to the ship again, he breaks the lock on the cellar door and is seen by Tori levitating above it, chanting the ship’s message.

Her interruption causes him to fall and cut himself on the spaceship, the first time he has ever been injured. Tori decides to reveal the truth about his arrival on Earth. Brandon, knowing the truth, leaves in anger, and finally deciphers the ship’s message: “Take the world.” In his rage, Brandon develops heat vision.

Brandon visits Caitlyn with flowers, she tells him that her mother has forbidden her from talking to him. Wearing a red mask and cape, Brandon stalks Erica while at the diner, as she closes it, and murders her. Police investigate the scene, finding a symbol looking like two Bs back-to-back drawn on a window, and Erica has disappeared. The following day at school, Brandon threatens Merilee when she says she is required to report his previous actions to police.

That night, Brandon stalks Merilee at her house until she goes to bed. Noah arrives home from the bar with Kyle and friends to find a masked Brandon hiding in the closet. Kyle threatens to tell his parents, prompting Brandon to lash out. Terrified, Noah tries to escape in his truck, but Brandon lifts and crashes the vehicle, killing Noah.

He uses Noah’s blood to draw the same symbol as before on the road. Brandon returns home, he lies about where he has been, and refuses to give his shirt to Tori, as it is covered in blood. A grieving Merilee calls Kyle and Tori, who meet her at the hospital to learn that Brandon had gone to her house, contradicting Brandon’s story about playing soccer.

The next morning, Tori and Kyle inform Brandon of Noah’s death, but Brandon has no reaction, which alarms Tori and angers Kyle. When Kyle accuses Brandon and grabs him, Brandon violently shoves him. Kyle finds Brandon’s blood-stained shirt and shows it to Tori, but she refuses to believe Brandon killed Noah. Kyle plans a hunting trip as an attempt to kill Brandon.

Kyle points the gun at Brandon when his head is turned, he shoots him, but the bullet bounces off his head. Brandon kills Kyle with his heat vision. Meanwhile, Sheriff Deever (Gregory Alan Williams) arrives at the Breyers’ house and asks Tori to see Brandon. Tori tells the sheriff that Kyle and Brandon aren’t home, so he shows Tori the symbol found at the scenes of Erica’s and Noah’s deaths.

Tori recognized the symbol from Brandon’s previous drawings, but claims ignorance, and later finds Brandon’s notebook with disturbing drawings of his murders and his message to “take the world”. She realizes that Kyle was right about Brandon. She attempts to call Kyle, but Brandon answers the phone and informs her that Kyle is gone.

Brandon returns home and destroys the house as Tori calls the police, but Brandon brutally murders the sheriff and Deputy Aryes (Annie Humphrey). Remembering that the ship is Brandon’s weakness, as it can harm him, Tori runs to the barn cellar. There she finds Erica’s mutilated body nailed to a wall and surrounded by symbols in blood.

Tori arms herself with a piece of the ship to stab Brandon during an embrace but fails when Brandon anticipates the attack. Enraged, Brandon flies Tori through the barn roof and above the clouds and drops her to her death. An airplane flies towards Brandon, and the scene goes dark. The next day, police, paramedics, and FBI are at the farm investigating the airplane crash, which killed everyone on board.

Brandon is seen on the news as the only surviving resident of the area. During the credits, Brandon begins his worldwide attacks which is covered in various news reports. A conspiracy theorist named Big T (Michael Rooker) discusses assorted destruction in Brightburn, the existence of other super-beings, and pleads with humanity to act.

Also starring Abraham Clinkscales as Royce, Christian Finlayson as Fauxhawk and Jennifer Holland as Ms. Espenschied. Banks gives a very good performance as the adoptive mother who defends her destructive son at many moments, and Dunn is obviously very sinister as the evil pubescent son and indestructible monster.

It is essentially the origins of Superman, with similarities to the 1978 Christopher Reeve movie (a childless couple in Kansas adopt an extra-terrestrial boy with superpowers), but seeing what would have happened if he had gone in the other direction and turned into a supervillain. It is a clever twist on the traditional comic book-based genre movie, it it is well-played out, well-paced, very dark, and has slasher style jumps and gory moments, a worthwhile superhero horror.