Matthew Bright (b. 1952) is an American screenwriter and director, known for making very gritty films with themes about women, serial killers and fairy tale motifs.
Films:
- Freeway (1996)
- Freeway II Confessions Of A Trickbaby (1999)
- Ted Bundy (2002)
- Tiptoes (2003)
He has also written:
- Forbidden Zone (1980)
- Wildfire (1988)
- Shrunken Heads (1994)
- Modern Vampires (1998)
Tropes usually seen in his works:
- Anti-Hero: Morally ambiguous protagonists are his usual trademark.
- Black Comedy: His humor does that in a very dark way.
- Central Theme: Obsession, deception, and guilt are common themes shared by almost all his films.
- Chekhov's Gun: An armoury of them.
- Chekhov's Gunman
- Dark and Troubled Past: ...that will haunt his protagonists like no other.
- The Lost Lenore: The death of a love interest is a key plot point and strong character motivator in his films.
- Playing Against Type: Notable for having Reese Witherspoon as an illiterate and swearing juvenile woman in Film/Freeway.
- Practical Effects: Bright highly preferred this over computer generated effects.
- Production Posse: Often works with the same actors in different films.
- Michael T. Weiss who was known as Larry from Freeway was seen in the sequel as a drifter.
- Bright used Danny Elfman for the music on Freeway.
- Kiefer Sutherland who was in Freeway was going to play Ted Bundy but refused.
- Reconstruction: Freeway is notable for making a dark interpretation of fairy tales in real life.
