Review by Stuart O'Connor
Stars Briana Evigan, Garret Dillahunt, Charlie Tahan, Meat Loaf, Preston Bailey,
Peggy Sheffield, Mary Rachel Dudley, | Written by Christine Johnson, Julie Roux & David Higgins
UK certification 15 | UK RRP £12.99 | DVD Region 2 | Runtime 80 minutes | Directed by Carlos Brooks
Sometimes, the simplest ideas make the best films. And the idea behind Burning Bright is one of the simplest I've seen in a long time – two people trapped in a house with a hungry tiger. During a hurricane. And it's an idea that works a treat.
It's a slow burn, this one. That's not to say it's slow-paced; far from it. There's a lot packed in to its neat 80-minute running time. What it does do, and very well, is nicely set the scene and establish the characters before getting to the meat of the tale – something that most films of this kind neglect to do. Which, given the situatiuon, is essential to make us care about the characters. We open with Florida resident Johnny Gaveneau (Dillahunt) buying a Bengal tiger from Meat Loaf on the side of the road. Johnny is setting up a safari park on his property, and the ex-circus tiger is going to be his main attraction. But Mr Loaf warns him to be vary wary of the animal, which recently killed and ate a horse: "That cat is pure evil. You ever heard a horse scream, Mr Gaveneau?"
In the meantime, Kelly Taylor (Evigan) – Johnny's stepdaughter – is trying to put her autistic young brother Tommy (Tahan) into a care home so she can go off to college. But it seems that slimy step-daddy has emptied his late wife's bank account to buy the tiger, so an upset and angry Kelly returns home as the house is being boarded up to prepare for a coming hurricane. Cut to later that night. The hurricane is in full swing, Johnny is nowhere to be seen ... and there's a very, very hungry tiger in the house. And so develops a thrilling cat-and-mouse game as Kelly has to hide herself and Tommy from the beast (and keep Tommy calm and quiet) while trying to find a way out. Which is not as easy as you might think.
It's an insane plot, but it works superbly. It's an effective and clever twist on the home invasion thriller, with a protaganist that can't be reasoned with. The tiger is simply doing what tigers do – hunting food. As Kelly tries to hide herself and her brother, while also trying to find a way out of the house, the tension mounts to bum-on-the-edge-of-the-seat-and-fist-in-mouth levels. Evigan – best known for the dance flick Step Up 2 and last year's horror remake Sorority Row – takes centre stage and anchors the film, showing that she's a real star in the making. Stunningly beautiful, and sexy to boot (she spends most of the final hour dripping wet, and in the skimpiest of skimpy clothing), Evigan is a genuinely good actress and brings a real toughness and humanity to her performance. She works hard to make us believe the situation that she finds herself and her brother in, and it really pays off. Director Brooks makes great use of the limited setting, and thankfully keeps CGI to the barest minimum – yes, REAL tigers were used in the making of this film, combined with some very clever editing work. It was a brave decision to do it old school – a CGI tiger would have been much easier to work with, but the result would have been so much weaker. Burning Bright is smart, tense and original – all thrillers should be this good.
EXTRAS Just the trailer