Brightburn (read my review) may be a horror film based on superhero stories, but don’t look for good to conquer evil. Or for any kind of hope whatsoever.
In an interview with Bloody-Disgusting, director David Yarovesky talked about the danger of a world where an all-powerful “super” “man” was a homicidal sociopath. Is there any chance of defeating him? Is there any hope, or is the world doomed?
“What a funny question,” Yarovesky said. “Here’s the thing, right? I promised to make a super fucked up superhero movie for everyone.
That was the promise I made the audience when I showed them that trailer, and when you see most superhero movies they’re just pumped full of hope and optimism.”
“And so if I was going to make the anti, evil version of these superhero stories, then I certainly couldn’t pump the audience with hope and optimism. It had be the inverse of that,” the director explained.
It all goes back to that familiar superhero concept, of a superpowered being raised by good people and becoming a good samaritan. “I’m playing with pre-baked-in ideas and flipping them on their head and challenging people,” Yarovesky said.
“We’ve all grown up in a world where we’ve been raised to think that, if you raise an alien baby maybe things will work out for you. And I’m making a movie that [says] if you see an alien baby in the woods, run for your life.”
And yes, David Yarovesky knows how cynical that sounds.
“I just think it was so fun to play with the idea of that kind of cynicism, because we’ve seen so many movies [where] someone gets superpowers and at the same time learns this incredibly important moral lesson, and so they will only use their superpowers for good,” Yarovesky said.
“And that’s great. I love those movies. I’ll pay for them every single time. But that wasn’t the movie I was making. I was going to make a movie that was going to try to turn those things into nightmares for us. In the same way that It turns clowns into a nightmare, I wanted to reshape your perspective on superpowers.”
“Wasn’t it Stephen Hawking who said if we ever meet alien lifeforms we’re all doomed?” Yarovesky laughed. “So I hear what you’re saying but I’m also just sprinkling a little reality dust…”
Brightburn launches into theaters on May 24, 2019.
