07/15/2025
It's cool that we're all steeped in the current "Superman cultural zeitgeist" moment, but I should point out that this is the SECOND "Gunn deconstruction" of the Man of Steel mythos—and I still proffer that his FIRST take was FAR more radical, subversive, and politically prescient than the follow-up.
BRIGHTBURN is an underrated, genre-bending masterwork that weaponized the American myth with surgical nihilism, has the audacity to remain unrepentantly unredemptive, and RIGHTLY reverts American iconography from hero-worship to horror fuel. Think ADOLESCENCE with notebook symbols... think WE NEED TO TALK ABOUT KEVIN with a cape.
Get in on the critical re-evaluation BEFORE it becomes cool—and yes, Zach Eastman—I am STILL waiting shirtless on that hill, waiting to fight anyone who continues to undervalue this film. If—at the very least—to pay homage to one of the very few films that dares to state what we all secretly know: that the arrival of ANY "star-child" to earth, be they alien or god, would ALWAYS ultimately prove to be a horror film.
