There are eleven other superhero movies releasing in 2019: Glass, Captain Marvel, Shazam, Hellboy, Endgame, X-men: Dark Phoenix, Spider-Man: Far From Home, New Mutants, Joker, and Spawn. Despite this abundance of heroes, Brightburnhas set itself apart as the first Superhero Horror, asking the question “What if Superman didn’t fight for us but against us?”
Set in rural Kansas, much like Clark Kent, the story begins with a childless couple Tori and Kyle Breyer (Elizabeth Banks and David Denmam) finding an alien child (Jackson A. Dunn) in the woods. They name him Brandon and lovingly raise him as their own. After he turns 12, he becomes less like the boy he was. The parents assume it’s puberty until his powers develop into something far beyond their control.
The current hype about these sorts of movies gave the filmmakers a unique opportunity to take those well-worn hero tropes and subvert them for the horror genre. “There’s a tradition that goes back to Moses up through contemporary superhero stories about childless parents who take in an infant that they find in the wild.” screenwriter Brian Gunn says. “Those figures grow up to be noble and heroic, but we wondered what would happen if it went the other way and this child ends up being something sinister. “
The costume designer, Autumn Steel spent months experimenting with different looks to strike that balance between iconic superhero and old school horror slasher. Something that would be of Brandon’s own making with items found around his barn. “We wanted it to look like a kid could build it. We wanted it to be scary.” Steed says. “We wanted it to move and feel like a superhero costume. It was made from a blanket. At the beginning of the movie, it’s like his ‘blanky.’ He uses it to make the costume, the mask, and the cape.”
The sound his cape makes as he stalks his victims became a signature horror element in the film. Says executive producer Simon Hatt: “In a Nightmare on Elm Street, you could always tell Freddy Krueger was coming because you could hear his fingers scraping along the wall. . . We used the movement of Brandon’s cape to signal something terrifying was about to happen. It’s almost like a ghost moving across the camera.”
Brightburn opens in theatres May 24
