10 Horror Movie Nightmares WITHIN Nightmares

Brightburn is a nice change of tone from the average kid-with-powers movie and while perhaps not terribly well executed, the horror approach is welcome, albeit familiar.

Tori and Kyle Breyer long for a child of their own. When a spacecraft containing a baby crashes into their farm land, they decide to raise him as their own. Some years later, the kid, now Brandon, is an adolescent with more than acne and girls on his mind - he's alien with some nifty X-Men style powers (he can throw lawnmowers really far). He also a psychopath and before long, he's too much for mum and dad to handle. Just think of a young Clark Kent - if he was the Antichrist.

This nightmare within a nightmare is different here but still counts; it's just in reverse. Here the short sharp shock comes first, as dad Kyle dreams of kissing Tori, before she screams in reaction to something. As Kyle wakes up in bed, he steadies himself and glances to his left; the wall has merged into a forest - Kyle is still in a nightmare.

This is where the slow burn comes in, usually reserved for the first nightmare. He walks through the forest at night and find Tori nursing a baby at the alien craft crash-site. Peering closer, he sees the baby begin to ooze blood and finally looking at its face, the eyes begin to glow red.

A nice sequence in a half-way decent serial killer sci-fi horror movie.