If you’ve ever found yourself wondering how Superman’s origin story would play out using horror movie logic, don’t worry because James Gunn and his brother and cousin, Brian and Mark, already delivered on the premise in 2019 with Brightburn. A low-budget entry compared to Gunn’s more high-profile projects, Brightburn does more than you’d expect with its $6 million production budget and nails the whole “what if Superman was evil?” setup without a hitch. As visually striking as it is, the film is so inconsistent from a stylistic standpoint that I found my interest dipping in and out.
Equal parts family drama, thriller, origin story, and slasher, Brightburn gets pulled in too many creative directions. It undermines its own impact because it never commits to a single lane, even though each individual component has the potential to work on its own.
Brightburn’s Origin Story
The Breyer family takes center stage in Brightburn, and we’re introduced to Brandon (Jackson A. Dunn), the adoptive son of Kyle (David Denman) and Tori (Elizabeth Banks). Brandon is a brilliant student who tests off the charts but struggles socially. On his 12th birthday, he falls into a trance and discovers he has superhuman abilities like flight, strength, and invulnerability. His powers lead to schoolyard trouble after he’s caught peeping on classmate Caitlyn Connor (Emmie Hunter) in the middle of the night. When he’s called out in front of his classmates, he lashes out, injures her, and ends up facing disciplinary action and pressure for a psychological evaluation.
After discovering a broken down spaceship hidden in the barn, Brandon learns he crash landed on Earth as an infant and was taken in after Tori and Kyle spent years trying to conceive. Furious, and seemingly activated like a sleeper agent, he launches into a violent rampage that escalates with every reveal.
Tonally Inconsistent, But A Valiant Effort
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As much as I wanted to be fully immersed in this dark spin on Superman, Brightburn’s tonal shifts kept pulling me out. We never fully understand Brandon’s motives or when his alien instincts are taking over. Some sequences lean toward psychological family thrillers like We Need to Talk About Kevin. Others play like a supervillain slasher, with Brandon coming off like Jason Voorhees cross-pollinated with Kryptonian biology.
Tori’s sympathetic mother act also feels unearned. She and Kyle know they are raising an alien child of unknown origin, so her refusal to process what is happening strains believability.
Brandon’s evolution is the most jarring part of the storytelling. He shifts from an innocent kid scared of what’s happening to him, to a menacing pre-teen with a taste for violence, to a full-on spree killer in record time. The lines he crosses are immediate and irreversible, making his turn from protagonist to antagonist feel abrupt rather than tragic. The lack of ambiguity around his humanity creates a tonal dissonance that undercuts any emotional thread the Gunns may have been trying to explore.
A Solid Proof Of Concept That Wasn’t Fully Fleshed Out
All that said, Brightburn is impressive on a production level. The violence and gore land with the punch you’d expect from elevated horror, and director David Yarovesky never shies away from the brutality as the story escalates. Elizabeth Banks, David Denman, and Jackson A. Dunn have strong on-screen chemistry, but the screenplay gives them inconsistent emotional beats that make it hard to fully connect with anyone.
Had Brightburn committed to one thematic throughline instead of juggling several, we might have gotten a more compelling story about coming of age, mortality, found family, and the fallout of discovering your child isn’t the perfect little angel you thought he was.
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As a proof of concept for an evil Superman idea, Brightburn doesn’t completely stick the landing, but the premise alone makes it worth checking out if you enjoy superhero stories with a darker edge.
Brightburn is streaming on Netflix.
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