In what can only be construed as a bout of mass insanity, James Gunn’s epic horror flick Brightburn is currently sitting at 57% on Rotten Tomatoes,. True to form, the critics shit all over Gunn’s genius spin on a classic, claiming it was uninteresting. Frankly, I’ve no idea what those fuckwits might think is interesting, but if they found Superboy hitting a sheriff at the speed of sound and literally exploding the man to be uninteresting, there is likely precious little they would actually deem interesting.
For those of you unfamiliar with James Gunn, he’s the director of the badass Guardians of the Galaxy movies, though before that he made one phenomenal horror-comedy, Slither, and one fairly mediocre movie called Super, which is all too easily confused with another not-super superhero flick starring Woody Harrelson. Both of those superhero flicks were eclipsed by the exceptionally superior Kick-Ass, so there’s really not much need to see Gunn’s movie… except that if you’re like me, you’d watch Liv Tyler read the ingredients off of a ketchup bottle for two hours.
In any event, James Gunn has his horror chops- in addition to Slither, he produced another phenomenal horror comedy called Dead and Breakfast, and he wrote Zach Snyder’s Dawn of the Dead and co-wrote and assistant directed arguably Troma’s best film, Tromeo and Juliet. The man uses practical horror effects to very good end, and when I went into Brightburn, that’s what I expected- a gory assed, dark fantasy superhero flick that was a riff on the Superman horror story.
You can imagine my surprise when instead Brightburn wasn’t anything of the sort- instead, it was a grimdark sci-fi horror flick about an apocalyptically evil humanoid alien that was as much the Omen as it was Superman. While not a gorehound flick, the gore was plentiful and well done, Elizabeth Banks was hot as ever, and Brightburn sets up a sequel you’d have to be fucking insane not to be pumped for- a hard-R Crime Syndicate of America film. That means that if you support what is already a dope flick, we will be treated to a film in which a bunch of superpowered sociopaths tear the ass out of the world.
That’s what’s at stake, people- you need to see an awesome film to get what might be the most awesome, gore-filled movie about a pack of superhuman psychopaths the world will ever see.
So what the fuck are you waiting for? Go see it.
And while you’re at it, check out Dead and Breakfast– it’s the zombie comedy musical you didn’t know you needed to see.
