Taking its inspiration from a line of a poem I’m not pretentious enough to have memorized in my academic career, Burning Bright pits Briana Evigan and a grade-school Rain Man against a tiger. Trapped in their house. During a hurricane. Seriously.
But wait! It all makes sense within the context of the picture, one which is actually quite suspenseful and something of a buried gem.
With her mom dead by suicide, Kelly (Evigan) may have to postpone college until she can afford to put her autistic little brother, Tom (Charlie Tahan), in a home. Their sleazy stepfather, Johnny (Garret Dillahunt), blew all their bucks on a vicious tiger he bought from Meat Loaf (Meat Loaf) for a tourist zoo he wants to open.
Johnny boards Kelly and Tom inside because of the oncoming storm and heads to the bar … but not before letting his new purchase slip inside, too. ZOMG KITTEH!!! Thus begins a half-literal game of cat-and-mouse that shouldn’t be able to sustain itself for more than an hour, yet does.
Making that feat all the more impressive is that this is only the second film from director Carlos Brooks, who has a great eye for framing and a Hitchcockian gift for building tension. It helps that he used a real, honest-to-God, big-ass-toothed tiger, whereas most filmmakers would’ve gone the easy route with letting the tech guys add one later with … I dunno, MacPaint or whatever it is they use. —Rod Lott
Just watch her wonderful under-reaction to the news that her and Sam Jones’ blossoming intimate relationship might be an incestuous one and tell me why she didn’t at least get her own badly written, cheesy ’80s sitcom! Truthfully, I can take or leave the rest of the picture — including the bizarre appearance by a fetal Penn & Teller — but that hasn’t stopped me from watching it a dozen times since it first came out.
Soon, the gang’s leader, the aptly named Ponytail (Chi-Shing Chiu) is dead from a knife through the back, but not before he runs down the street and tries to drive himself to the hospital, while Lo slips into unconsciousness after an alleyway fall in pursuit, and the other gang guys steal his gun.
And then the corpses she leaves behind become reanimated and pick up her bad habits. And the cops show up, bringing the Army with them, and they seal off the building and won’t let anyone out.
Crossing their paths is Lucky (James Franciscus), who owes $13,000 in gambling debts to a mob boss, but is really a Justice Department agent undercover. To that end, Lucky befriends a circus midget named Samson (Billy Barty), gets a job shoveling elephant poo, and falls for Justice (Barbara Eden), who rides Wonder Horse under the big top in a bejeweled bikini that highlights her great ass.