Burning Bright (2010)
Directed by: Carlos Brooks
Written by: Christine Coyle Johnson, David Higgins, Julie Prendiville Roux
Starring: Briana Evigan, Charlie Tahan, Garret Dillahunt
I will be honest, after seeing the trailer for this, i was less than excited. What exactly could they do with a tiger let lose in a house chasing a girl and her young brother? How exactly could this be made into a full length movie, surely the makers would run out of ideas and tension? Was i wrong? Read on to find out
There are two main reasons i enjoyed this. First and foremost, Briana Evigan She plays Kelly and she spends almost the entire film in a very tight top and bedtime shorts, and let me tell you, she is stunning and will happily keep you occupied for an hour and a half as she sweats and runs around with wet hair! To say my attention was 100% focused is an understatement, i couldn’t even leave the room for a cup of tea without pausing in case i missed a bit of her Perversity out of the way, the other reason is that Burning Bright is actually very very good, and yes i was incredibly surprised at just how good this was!
Briana Evigan plays Kelly, she has just got a scholarship and is taking her autistic younger brother into care and is using some savings their now dead mother put in a bank account for them. Kelly’s stepdad has spent the savings on a tiger, for his up coming safari park which is, of all places, in his back garden!!! Anyway, so Kelly and her brother return to the house and argue with him, he leaves after having the house borded up due to a hurricane on its way. This, my dear strange friends, is a work of pure genius on the writers part. With the house boarded up, there is no way out, fantastic! And so, the tiger gets into the house, to explain how it got there would ruin half the story, so lets just be happy to know it is there, in the house. Thankfully by this point, Kelly is all undressed and for the rest of the film, this is how she will stay Oh, apart from about ten minutes near the end, when for some God forsaken reason she puts on a pair of jeans
We now have a whole hour of Kelly and her rather annoying little brother hiding from the vicious, psychotic tiger. The reason this tiger is so mad is its been starved! So, does it work, an hour of such a small space and with very little to actually do. There’s only so many showdowns you can have with a tiger before the fucker actually kills you! The simple answer is YES! Its really does work. I never expected it to be this good. There is an unbelievably tense scene where Kelly climbs up the dirty clothes shoot as the tiger breaks in the door. Stuck in the shoot and sweating (yeh, almost see through top! ), the scene goes on for longer than it should actually work, but it does work. I actually found myself subconsciously sat on the edge of my seat! There are a number of scenes like this, and at times the tiger is very scary indeed. The majority of the attacks never seem to forced, and feel oddly quite believable. I have two main gripes, no three. Firstly, i would have preferred Kelly just fed her annoying as fuck brother to the tiger because he really did try my patience and pretty much ruined every scene. Secondly, i think they used the growling sound from the ED-209 robot in Robocop for the tigers sound effects and it became annoying. Thirdly, did Kelly REALLY have to put those blasted jeans on
Burning Bright is an easy horror, well, i suppose its more of a thriller really as there’s very little blood. But, its a film that really works in many levels, it flows at a nice pace and never outstays its welcome. Its incredibly well produced and looks fantastic. Its enjoyable, thats the key, its really enjoyable and one i shall no doubt be adding to the collection once its at the right price
Rating: 
[pt-filmtitle]Burning Bright[/pt-filmtitle]
