MovieChat Forums > Brightburn (2019) Discussion > Just watched this, My take

Just watched this, My take


Pretty good and impressive from a horror film standpoint, in terms of what they did with budget. Really good special effects and an effective "monster' movie that is basically a blending of films like Superman and The Omen. The acting was good and it had a well developed screenplay for what it was going for.

Make no mistake though this is a straight up 'slasher' horror film. It is great at being that but I wished for something a little different, personal preference only. Spoilers ahead:

I wish it would have been a little more of a suspense and thriller such as showing there was more of an internal struggle and longer transition to pure evil for Brightburn. like there was some attempt to resist his 'calling' and nature, only for him to fail. Not only would this make the ending more tragic for the family and for the world, it would make the killing of his parents more of a surprise and truly shocking act of evil that would forever 'damn' the character

The way it is now is he makes his first kill halfway through the film and it is extremely brutal, he is damned from then on. the rest of the film is predictable after that, there was nowhere for the character to go, it is just one brutal kill after another thus making him a movie monster or slasher killer instead of an actual character.

Also I am not sure how I felt about the gore, gore is effective when it is used when it is needed such as in films like John Carptenter's The Thing. In this film it felt like gore for the sack of gore. Like I said if you like your straight up slasher films this is perfect, personally I don't like slasher films as I find them kind of boring. if you were like me and interested in the concept of an 'Evil' Superman and were hoping for something containing a bit more plot you might be disappointed.

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Why do people never say, comedy for the sake of comedy, gratuitous smiling, or love interest for the sake of love interest. Sex and violence are as much a part of life as laughing or loving, only most of us have been insulated from it so thoroughly that we protest when accidentally exposed. The brutality and violence of nature offends people yet it exists around us everywhere everyday. Don't believe me, just watch real nature videos of animals killing other animals to protect their territory, breeding rights, or for dinner.

Interestingly I never heard of this movie until today. edit; the trailer really gives it all away.

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"Why do people never say, comedy for the sake of comedy, gratuitous smiling, or love interest for the sake of love interest."

They do, they just call it something else, for example the equivalent of gore for the sack of gore's in comedy would just be called unnecessarily crude/dirty humor, meaning it lacked the subtlety. Same thing for love interest, they will say unnecessary love scenes that added nothing of value to the story.

Same idea just expressed differently.

Personally I have no real problem with depictions of Sex or violence in a film unless I think it does not add anything of value to the story. a general rule of thumb is, often it is better to let the audiences' imagination do the work for the film, it is often far more effective because the imagination is often more terrifying then the reality. This is why one of the best and most effective depictions of violence in film history is the chainsaw scene in Scarface. In that film there is no actual gore; there is some blood splatter and screaming combined with the sound of the chainsaw plus Al Pacino's performance. That scene would have been far worse of if they tried to show the actual arm being chopped off.

"Interestingly I never heard of this movie until today. edit; the trailer really gives it all away."

Agreed, trailers in general today give way too much away. But this movie had nothing left to add after the trailer. I was genuinely bored while watching it. No real suspense

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Good points but I'm not sure I agree that crude humor and gratuitous humor are the same thing.

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Yes you are right on that, crude humor if done well is not the same as gratuitous. An example I would think of is the crude humor of south park is pretty effective, however I find the humor (of lack of humor) of family guy to be mere gratuitous. So I agree that crude humor does not always equal gratuitous. I suppose it is the same for depictions of gore or violence.

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well developed screenplay? then why did they never explain anything substantial about the main character. they never explain why he kills, what he is, what is his purpose, and what his means by take the world? if we know nothing about his character then we can't sympathize with him and we can't care about him and this movie is a bad movie.

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Often times in your traditional horror/slasher films the lack of motivation from the 'monster' is supposed to add to the terror of the thing. I particularly don't like it because I agree a character we have no motivation to sympathize with I find the characters not very compelling. But since that is the way it is by design, we have to acknowledge it is a solid screenplay for what it was trying to deliver even if it was not to our preference.

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but the problem with that is it's not a traditional slasher movie it's a slasher/superhero movie so being that we demand a character backstory like superman so the fact we never get any character backstory is unacceptable.

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NO IT DIDNT.SOUNDS LIKE YOU DEMAND A BACKSTORY...I PREFER LESS EXPOSITION.WHERE EXACTL IS THIS BACKSTORY YOU DEMAND COMING FROM ANYWAY?...THE INFANT?THE ALIEN SHIP?GOD NARRATING?

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True, the blending of superhero(villain)/Slasher did not work for me either. It needed more of a character story, not necessarily back story, but character study on answering a question such as 'what would it take for young superman to commit a unjustifiable crime/murder'. That would have been interesting. What we got was a version of superman in which he is evil by nature without much reason given. Death and destruction for the sack of it. Not as interesting as it could have been.

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More plot would have been great.

I was a kind of slasher movie.

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