Firestarter
UNIVERSALBlumhouse’s Firestarter remake accomplishes the incredible feat of stripping away all of the silliness and camp from Mark L. Lester’s 1984 original, with a darker tone, aesthetic, as well as score; yet it is equally as silly, or even perhaps more inane, than the 1984 film and even the terrible 2002 TV miniseries, Firestarter: Rekindled. For sure, the acting is better compared to both films in original and miniseries, but it is not enough to save the latest adaptation of Stephen King’s novel from being yet another incredibly cheap and ridiculous horror movie.
The silliness stems from Firestarter’s lead performance from Ryan Kiera Armstrong, who is the weakest link of the film. She plays Charlie McGee, a young girl born with pyrokinetic powers, after her parents – Andy McGee (Zac Efron) and Vicky Tomlinson (Sydney Lemmon) – participated in a study where a drug called “Lot Six” gave them dangerous abilities. They’re consistently on the run from the authorities and change their names every time they enter a new city and school. After an incident at Charlie’s new school, the McGee family are on the run yet again, now from a mysterious organisation named “The Shop” and bounty hunter John Rainbird (Michael Greyeyes), looking to track down Charlie and their parents for Captain Hollister (Gloria Reuben), who plans to use Charlie as a weapon for reasons unexplained other than the predictable and conventional rhetoric of “if we could harness that power” dialogue.
Kiera Armstrong does play Charlie in a more serious light than, say, Drew Barrymore or Marguerite Moreau, but she is not all that convincing as a young girl corrupted by her pyrokinetic powers. In the original, Charlie had a carefree personality and her mood swings would make her attack people with fire. It wasn’t her fault. In this version, Charlie’s personality isn’t carefree – she considers herself a monster and thinks everything caused by her is entirely her fault. And guess what? The climax will literally make her descent into pyro-madness her fault, as opposed to the original film, and book, which made it clear that Charlie’s actions were not what she wanted. So the movie already disrespects Stephen King’s original source material within minutes and takes wild creative liberties down the line that will make King die-hards go nuts, and not in a good way. That being said, Stanley Kubrick ultimately destroyed the original work of King in his adaption of The Shining, so what can director Keith Thomas do to elevate the material at hand?
Well, thankfully, Efron, Greyeyes, and Lemmon are all great. Greyeyes is the real star of the picture as Rainbird, who is much less cartoonish than George C. Scott and Malcolm McDowell’s terrible iterations in the last two Firestarter productions, respectively. Rainbird has a more serious backstory, and does not try to “pretend” to befriend Charlie – he’s an antagonist right off the bat and showcases his menacing powers through a chilling sequence between him and Lemmon, who also has her time to shine. She’s a vastly underrated actress, able to bring out huge dramatic swings when needed and make the audience fear for her life in the process. Her chemistry with Greyeyes, in particular, is dynamic and electrifying, far more tangible than with Efron. Nevertheless, Efron gives an impactful dramatic performance here. It isn’t perfect by any means but is a great showcase of the actor’s range and a promising future in more dramatic roles with a better script. The screenplay, written by Scott Teems, does absolutely no favors for any of the character development here and treads in terribly ridiculous territory at times. A serious scene can be unintentionally hilarious, especially when Kiera Armstrong is forced to deliver lines like “liar, liar, pants on fire” before brutally setting that said person on fire and killing them. It’s not supposed to be funny, but the delivery and the execution is quite poor and delivers the opposing tone intended.
The film’s aesthetic is sadly lifeless as it tries to impress the viewer with lively neon colors during the film’s non-eventful climax, but the entirety of the action setpieces are poorly shot and edited. Yes, Blumhouse is known for making cheap horror flicks, but director Keith Thomas has no idea how to make a “cheap” movie look polished. At times, it looks even worse than Firestarter: Rekindled, which was released on SyFy (at the time, named the Sci-Fi channel). The only element that does most of the film’s heavy lifting, aesthetically, is its incredible score from John Carpenter, Cody Carpenter, and Daniel Davies. It’s not as upbeat as Tangerine Dream’s score in the 1984 original – which also slaps incredibly hard – but adds so much emotional levity to any sequence, particularly during its climax. Yes, the action makes for some great unintentional comedy, but Carpenter’s score tries to elevate its material as much as it can, and actively invests us in the movie even if the final product is a low achiever, to begin with.
Firestarter has its moments, which ultimately makes it a fascinating watch. It is nowhere near as effective as it should or could be due to some of the silliest writing of the year, but Carpenter’s score, and its lead performances from Greyeyes, Efron, Lemmon, and Kurtwood Smith – in a minor but effective role – make it less of a bore compared to its contemporaries . However, its scriptwriting, cheap aesthetic, and ridiculous almost cringe-inducing line deliveries make it equally as risible as the book’s previous two adaptations. Granted, there are worse horror features out there than Firestarter, sure, but a remake of an already terrible piece of cinema is not still worth watching.