![]() It is not to spoil much to say that, combined with director Eskil Vogt's also just-released The Innocents, this is the worst week ever to be a cat in a film about kids with telekinetic powers. ![]() If Thomas' Firestarter never really exploits the body-horror potential of a power that allows its wielder to literally boil the blood of their victims, the film does also have moments of genuine unpleasantness absent from the original. ![]() In this, he is assisted by Armstrong, who manages to add a whiff of genuine danger to her performance. Still, the director keeps matters moving along at a clip and successfully frames Charlie as a character of real, possibly apocalyptic, threat. Thomas came to the attention of Blumhouse via his 2019 ghost tale The Vigil, which is a much more atmospheric and scary film than this. The film is directed by Keith Thomas from a script by Halloween Kills co-writer Scott Teems and boasts a soundtrack by John Carpenter, finally getting into the Firestarter business almost four decades on. Ken Woroner/Universal Pictures Zac Efron and Ryan Kiera Armstrong in 'Firestarter' Meanwhile, the always-welcome Kurtwood Smith pops up as a regretful scientist whose experiments on Charlie's parents turned her into an outsized Zippo lighter. This time, Charlie is played by Ryan Kiera Armstrong, Zac Efron portrays Andy, Gloria Reuben effectively takes the Martin Sheen role, and, mercifully, Indigenous-Canadian actor Michael Greyeyes is Rainbird, who in this iteration, also has telekinetic powers. The new Firestarter is a leaner and, in a good way, meaner affair, which is less faithful to the source material while also hitting the book's essential beats. Alas, even when Barrymore's character is turning her tormentors into crispy critters, the young actress exudes all the threat of someone trying to decide between ice cream flavors. While Sheen and Scott portray the film's villains, Charlie is still the movie's monster, the character capable of committing mass murder with her mind. The director is little helped by Barrymore, whose E.T.-era button-cuteness ill-serves this particular project. Lester capably delivers the sight of stuntmen wandering around on fire but allows the film to sag badly once Charlie and Andy are captured and taken to the Shop's headquarters, a mansion whose tony nature is as inexplicable as Scott playing a Native American. Lester, who had brought the world the 1979 disco film Roller Boogie and would go on to direct 1985's Arnold Schwarzenegger-starring Commando. ![]() ©Universal Pictures/courtesy Everett Collectionĭe Laurentiis' company also produced Firestarter, which was originally to be directed by John Carpenter, before a slashing of the budget caused the Halloween filmmaker to depart the project and set his sights on adapting another King novel, Christine. Many of the King movies from the '80s were financed by the parsimonious Italian producer Dino De Laurentiis who employed less-feted directors to oversee 1985's Cat's Eye and 1985's Silver Bullet, before backing a then-addicted-to-cocaine King to make 1986's box office dud Maximum Overdrive.įIRESTARTER, Drew Barrymore, 1984. The earliest adaptations of King's work were directed by some of the era's most notable auteurs with Brian De Palma turning Carrie into the 1976 horror classic and Stanley Kubrick transforming The Shining into the unforgettable (if disliked-by-the-author) 1980 movie. Scott, is inexplicably cast as the seemingly First Nation assassin John Rainbird, who has a fondness for punching his targets' noses into their brains and an unhealthy interest in our heroine. ![]() Finally, another Academy Award-winner, George C. Oscar-winners Art Carney and Louise Fletcher play a couple who befriend Charlie and Andy, while Martin Sheen portrays the head of the Shop just a year after his performance in David Cronenberg's adaptation of King's The Dead Zone. The supporting cast is notable for a few reasons. Andy has been training Charlie to use her powers properly by getting her to turn bread into toast with her mind but it is the unfortunate Shop agents who get browned as Barrymore's character periodically sets them ablaze. The 1984 film stars Barrymore as Charlie McGee, a young girl with pyrokinetic powers who is fleeing from a sinister government organization called "The Shop" with her father Andy, played by David Keith. Ken Woroner/Universal Everett Collection Firestarter (2022) and Firestarter (1984) ![]()
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