Burning Bright (2010)
Rarely do films with outlandish synopsi turn out to be any good. Sure it has potential for being so bad it’s good, (Shark Attack 3 anyone?) but never are they actually good. Burning Bright broke the mold and gives all us funky film lovers something to hope for and aspire to.
Set in the dirty south, a recently widowed man decides to start his very own exotic animal zoo on his property. He buys himself a tiger, a violent circus tiger of course, and brings the feline home amongst preparations for an oncoming hurricane. The man’s step children, a teenage girl and an autistic boy come home to weather out the storm in the safety of their solidly boarded up house. Little do they know that the tiger will escape and run free in the home, on the prowl for human meat. How will a teenage girl and her mentally challenged brother survive?
Sounds awful right? Like something you’d see in a bargain bin or on Syfy. Turns out the film is actually good. Really good. Sporting a PG0-13 rating, the film already had a strike against it in this gorehound’s book but damn if it doesn’t deliver heaps of suspense. I actually cared about the kids through careful characterization and the plot never drags. Hell the two are locked in the house within the first 15 min of the movie! The whole film runs pretty short and keeps a tight ship throughout. The best part is how smart this seemingly moronic film actually is. As I watched it, I keep saying, “that’s dumb why don’t they do this or that?,” Well, the writers saw every hole I punched in it and filled them with satisfying and fairly realistic reasons. Like, why don’t they have a gun, it’s the south!? Well, they do have a gun. Or, why don’t they just leave, or why don’t they just lock themselves in the attic? Or why don’t they call someone? The list goes on and on and all of them have plausible reasons and/or solutions. Awesome. Finally a film that has a crazy plot where the writers did their due diligence and fixed every problem. What they’ve created here is a nature run amok film that’s actually good, and doesn’t rip off any other film.
Original, entertaining, fast paced, and plausible, Burning Bright is a film about a tiger trying to eat children in a house in the south that actually works. Go check it out, you’ll be pleasantly surprised.
Gore: none
Nudity: none
Overall: 7/10
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7s2l4JGdPm8