He's also aided by a smart script by Christine Coyle Johnson and Julie Prendville Roux, making Evigan a flawed but realistic character who survives by wits and guts. Director Carlos Brooks – who has remained off the radar since this film's release in 2010 - shows exceptional skill at delivering breathless suspense set pieces on a lean budget. "Burning Bright" has a complex set-up, but once the kids and the tiger are in the house, it boils down to a survival game, with Evigan trying to keep herself and her brother alive and the tiger doing its best to achieve the opposite result. But as Evigan soon finds out, her stepdad is more monster than deadbeat, as he's found a solution for both his tiger and stepchildren problems by sealing them all together in their house as the hurricane bears down on them. She wants to return to college and find proper care for her autistic brother ("Ozark's" Charlie Tahan), but money is tight thanks to her stepfather (Garrett Dillahunt), who's blown their money on a tiger for a planned safari park. The attacks are very well orchestrated (by animal trainer Monty Cox with Backlinie's reported help) and appear to involve real animals as opposed to the ratty fur suit in "Grizzly." This suit (or one like it) does turn up in the film's show-stopper sequence, though, in which Nielsen - playing a toxic macho type - loses his marbles and strips to the waist to grapple with an enormous grizzly. Their numbers are quickly decimated by a small army of angry beasts, from mountain lions and snakes to wild dogs and even rats. The premise is just as loopy as "Grizzly": A hole in the ozone layer drives animals in Northern California to attack humans, which is poor timing for Christopher George and a crew of hikers. George's wife, Lynda Day George, co-stars with Leslie Nielsen, TV vet Michael Ansara, and to underscore the film's unspoken connection to "Jaws," Susan Backlinie, who played the doomed Chrissie Watkins in the Spielberg film, was on hand to again meet an awful fate (this time, it's a one-two punch of wolves and hawks). Girdler brought back Christopher George and Richard Jaeckel, as well as adding several more performers to the dinner menu for his killer woodland creatures.
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