New Scream Queen on the block Briana Evigan (Sorority Row and the forthcoming Mother’s Day) stars as Kelly Taylor, a young woman forced to put her plans of attending college on hold in order to look after her autistic little brother when her mother dies suddenly. The siblings live with their step-father Johnny in Montgomery, Alabama in a large house with huge gardens which is currently being renovated into a Safari Park. With a hurricane approaching, Johnny and his crew begin securing the house and the exotic animals’ cages but tragedy strikes when a Bengal tiger escapes and winds up locked in the house with Kelly and her brother, Tom.
I was really excited for this film as it sounded amazing on paper. In reality it’s a run of the mill thriller that looses further points for never allowing the actors to interact with the tiger during the shooting process resulting in fake looking attack sequences.
Don’t get me wrong, the film isn’t bad. It has a solid cast and makes you work for answers (as evidenced by the masses of message board posts asking for clarification by viewers who obviously prefer/need to be spoon fed info). It’s just a bit too predictable and some scenes of the tiger ‘interacting’ with the actors look cheap. I understand they couldn’t just let a tiger off its leash and hope for the best, but the film would have benefited so much from it.
OVERALL SUMMARY
Burning Bright is an okay time-waster. Clocking in at 82 minutes (including lengthy credits) it’s pretty fast paced once it gets going and Briana Evigan is both sympathetic and likeable here, so fans of hers will surely enjoy it.
