Brightburn(2019)
2019 · David Yarovesky · 91 min
What if a child from another world crash-landed on Earth, but instead of becoming a hero to mankind, he proved to be something far more sinister?
Horror · Science Fiction · Drama
6.23.6k votes
TMDB score
4/5
Intensity
4/5
Gore
3/5
Stays with you
How Brightburn scares
Brightburn spends its first act like a quiet family drama in a small farm town, letting you get comfortable before it turns sharp and violent. Once the shift happens, the fear becomes very physical and sudden, built around a threat that can hurt people with almost no effort and no warning. It leans hard into graphic, bloody moments rather than slow dread, so it lands more as a shocking gut-punch than a mind game. Good for people who want body horror and comic-book violence flipped into something nasty rather than eerie atmosphere.
On The Horror Database's 0–5 scare profile, Brightburn rates psychological 2/5, visceral 5/5, gore 4/5, lingering effect 3/5, and overall intensity 4/5.
- Psychological: 2 of 5
- Visceral: 5 of 5
- Gore: 4 of 5
- Lingering: 3 of 5
- Intensity: 4 of 5
Slow burn vs Jump scares: 30 of 100 — leans Slow burn
Supernatural vs Real-world: 30 of 100 — leans Supernatural
Fun-scary vs Disturbing: 65 of 100 — leans Disturbing
Intensity over runtime
Shape only — no eventsReveal pacing shapeHide pacing shapeHidden by default — shows where the tension peaks and lets up.
A slow, ordinary-life setup that gradually cracks open into escalating dread and then a brutal, sustained final act.
Intensity across the runtime, 0 to 100: 0, 1, 1, 2, 2, 3, 3, 4, 4, 5, 5, 4.
How scary is Brightburn?
On The Horror Database's 0–5 intensity scale, Brightburn rates 4/5 — one of the more punishing watches in the catalog, building its fear through slow-burn dread rather than shocks. It attacks the body more than the mind — physical, in-your-face horror. Expect it to be heavy on gore and genuinely disturbing. Some of it will follow you to bed, but it lets go within a day or so.
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