''Firestarter'' is a 1984 American
science fiction
Science fiction (sometimes shortened to Sci-Fi or SF) is a genre of speculative fiction which typically deals with imaginative and futuristic concepts such as advanced science and technology, space exploration, time travel, parallel unive ...
horror-
thriller film
Thriller film, also known as suspense film or suspense thriller, is a broad film genre that evokes excitement and suspense in the audience. The suspense element found in most films' plots is particularly exploited by the filmmaker in this genre ...
based on
Stephen King
Stephen Edwin King (born September 21, 1947) is an American author of horror, supernatural fiction, suspense, crime, science-fiction, and fantasy novels. Described as the "King of Horror", a play on his surname and a reference to his high s ...
's 1980 novel of the
same name. The plot concerns a girl who develops
pyrokinesis
Pyrokinesis is the purported psychic ability allowing a person to create and control fire with the mind. As with other parapsychological phenomena, there is no conclusive evidence in support of the actual existence of pyrokinesis. Many alleged c ...
and the secret government agency known as The Shop which seeks to control her. The film was directed by
Mark L. Lester
Mark L. Lester (born November 26, 1946) is an American film director, screenwriter, and Film producer, producer. He is known as a prolific director of cult films, including the disco musical ''Roller Boogie'' (1979), the vigilante thriller fil ...
, and stars
David Keith David Keith may refer to:
* David Keith (novelist) (1906–1994), pen name of American scholar Francis Steegmuller
*David Keith (actor) (born 1954), American film and TV performer and director
*David Keith (physicist), Canadian-born Harvard Profess ...
,
Drew Barrymore
Drew Blythe Barrymore (born February 22, 1975) is an American actress, director, producer, talk show host and author. A member of the Barrymore family of actors, she is the recipient of several accolades, including a Golden Globe Award and a ...
,
Martin Sheen
Ramón Antonio Gerardo Estévez (born August 3, 1940), known professionally as Martin Sheen, is an American actor. He first became known for his roles in the films ''The Subject Was Roses'' (1968) and ''Badlands'' (1973), and later achieved wid ...
and
George C. Scott
George Campbell Scott (October 18, 1927 – September 22, 1999) was an American actor, director, and producer who had a celebrated career on both stage and screen. With a gruff demeanor and commanding presence, Scott became known for his port ...
. ''Firestarter'' was shot in and around
Wilmington,
Chimney Rock, and
Lake Lure
Lake Lure is a town in Rutherford County, North Carolina, United States. In 2020 the town population was 1,634. Lake Lure was incorporated in 1927, and acquired the lake after which it is named in 1965.
History
In 1902, Dr. Lucius B. Morse and ...
,
North Carolina
North Carolina () is a state in the Southeastern region of the United States. The state is the 28th largest and 9th-most populous of the United States. It is bordered by Virginia to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the east, Georgia and So ...
.
A
miniseries
A miniseries or mini-series is a television series that tells a story in a predetermined, limited number of episodes. "Limited series" is another more recent US term which is sometimes used interchangeably. , the popularity of miniseries format h ...
follow-up to the film, ''
Firestarter: Rekindled'', was released in 2002 on the
Sci-Fi Channel
Syfy (formerly Sci-Fi Channel, later shortened to Sci Fi; stylized as SYFY) is an American basic cable channel owned by the NBCUniversal Television and Streaming division of Comcast's NBCUniversal through NBCUniversal Cable Entertainment. Launc ...
and a
remake
A remake is a film, television series, video game, song or similar form of entertainment that is based upon and retells the story of an earlier production in the same medium—e.g., a "new version of an existing film". A remake tells the same ...
feature film produced by
Blumhouse Productions
Blumhouse Productions (; also known as BH Productions or simply BH) is an American film and television production company founded in 2000 by Jason Blum.
It is known mainly for producing horror films, such as ''Paranormal Activity'', ''Insidio ...
was released on May 13, 2022.
Plot
As college students, Andy McGee and Vicky Tomlinson participated in an experiment in which they were given a dose of a low-grade
hallucinogen
Hallucinogens are a large, diverse class of psychoactive drugs that can produce altered states of consciousness characterized by major alterations in thought, mood, and perception as well as other changes. Most hallucinogens can be categorized ...
called LOT-6. While the other participants suffered terrible side effects, the experiment gave Vicky and Andy telepathic abilities; Vicky can read minds and Andy can control others to do and believe what he wants, though the effort sometimes gives him
nosebleeds
A nosebleed, also known as epistaxis, is bleeding from the nose. Blood can flow down into the stomach, and cause nausea and vomiting. In more severe cases, blood may come out of both nostrils. Rarely, bleeding may be so significant that low bloo ...
, limiting this otherwise very strong power. Now married, they have an eight-year-old daughter named Charlene "Charlie" McGee, who has
pyrokinetic
Pyrokinesis is the purported List of psychic abilities, psychic ability allowing a person to create and control fire with the mind. As with other parapsychological phenomena, there is no conclusive evidence in support of the actual existence of p ...
abilities (the power to control heat and fire) and can also see the near future.
Andy comes home from work one day to find Vicky murdered and Charlie abducted; the family had already suspected that the government agency that sponsored the experiment, the
Department of Scientific Intelligence ("The Shop"), was watching them, with the government wanting to weaponize Charlie's power. Andy finds Charlie and rescues her by blinding the agents, and for the next year they are on the run.
Farmer Irv Manders and his wife Norma take in the pair; Andy tells Irv the truth so that when The Shop arrives, he is ready to stand with them. However, Charlie quickly dispatches the agents when they arrive. They go on the run again, but Andy's power has weakened. They go to a secluded cabin and prepare to go public with their story. Unfortunately, the head of The Shop, Captain James Hollister, sends agent and assassin John Rainbird to capture them and stop the release of information. To protect themselves, Andy writes letters to major newspapers, unintentionally revealing their location. After capture, father and daughter are kept separated. Andy is medicated and subjected to tests, and given drugs which decrease his powers. Meanwhile, Rainbird pretends to be "John", a friendly orderly employed by The Shop to gain Charlie's trust and encourage her to submit to the tests.
Charlie's powers increase exponentially. She continually demands to see her father as they promised. Andy is revealed to be faking the acceptance of his drugs, so his powers have never decreased and it was all a ruse to make Hollister drop his guard. Once alone on a walk far from the house, Andy uses his power to get information from Hollister (such as "John"'s true identity) and arranges to leave with Charlie that night. He slips Charlie a note and she immediately tells John/Rainbird about the escape. Since he has wanted to kill Charlie since first hearing about her, he hides in the barn so he can kill Andy as well. Charlie enters the barn first and Rainbird successfully convinces her to start climbing up the ladder to him.
His plan is foiled once Andy enters and Charlie instead runs to her father. She tells him that "John" is present and asks if they can take him with them. She is saddened and angered to find out the truth, yet believes Rainbird when he states that he will not kill her father if she comes to him. To save his daughter, Andy orders the still mind-controlled Hollister to shoot at Rainbird. However, Rainbird kills Hollister, after which Andy, using his powers, causes Rainbird to leap to the ground, breaking his leg. Rainbird shoots Andy in the neck, fatally wounding him. He then fires at Charlie but she detonates the bullet and engulfs Rainbird in the ensuing fire, killing him. Andy, mortally wounded and dying, pleads with her to use her powers to bring the facility down after he dies. The entire security team arrives and she eliminates them one by one with her powers and makes her way off the property. Charlie hitchhikes back to the Manders' farm and is welcomed back. Shortly after, Charlie and Irv arrive in
New York City
New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...
to tell her story to the media.
Cast
Production
During filming of ''
The Thing'', Universal offered
John Carpenter
John Howard Carpenter (born January 16, 1948) is an American filmmaker, actor, and composer. Although he worked in various film genres, he is most commonly associated with horror, action, and science fiction films of the 1970s and 1980s. He ...
the chance to direct the film, who hired
Bill Lancaster
William Henry Lancaster (November 17, 1947 – January 4, 1997) was an American screenwriter and actor.
Early life
He was born November 17, 1947, in Los Angeles, California, the son of Burt Lancaster (1913–1994) and Norma Anderson (1917–198 ...
to adapt the novel into a screenplay, which Stephen King approved of.
Months later, Carpenter hired Bill Phillips to write another version with
Richard Dreyfuss
Richard Stephen Dreyfuss (; born Dreyfus; October 29, 1947) is an American actor. He is known for starring in popular films during the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s, including ''American Graffiti'' (1973), ''Jaws'' (1975), ''Close Encounters of the T ...
as Andy, but when ''The Thing'' underperformed financially, Universal replaced Carpenter with Mark L. Lester, who brought Stanley Mann to write a screenplay that stayed closer to the novel than the abandoned screenplays that Carpenter had commissioned.
Lancaster's father
Burt
Burt is a given name and also a shortened form of other names, such as Burton and Herbert, or a place name.
Burt may refer to:
People
*Burt Alvord (1866–after 1910), American Old West lawman and outlaw
*Burt Bacharach (born 1928), American com ...
, originally cast as Captain Hollister, had to withdraw following heart surgery and was replaced by Martin Sheen.
Produced by
Dino De Laurentiis
Agostino "Dino" De Laurentiis (; 8 August 1919 – 10 November 2010) was an Italian-American film producer. Along with Carlo Ponti, he was one of the producers who brought Italian cinema to the international scene at the end of World War II. He ...
, the film was the first to be shot at his new studio complex in North Carolina.
[https://www.starnewsonline.com/news/20190510/firestarter-lit-fire-in-local-film-that-still-burns-35-years-later] Shot in and around the city of
Wilmington, North Carolina
Wilmington is a port city in and the county seat of New Hanover County in coastal southeastern North Carolina, United States.
With a population of 115,451 at the 2020 census, it is the eighth most populous city in the state. Wilmington is the ...
from September 12 to November 26, 1983, it was the first film shot there after the commission of the
North Carolina Film Office
The North Carolina Film Office, originally called the "North Carolina Film Commission," is a member of the Association of Film Commissioners International.
History
Founded in 1980 by Governor James B. Hunt, the office was commissioned to help ...
, and is regarded as launching the city as what is now a burgeoning hub of film and television productions. Over 1,350 film and television projects have been produced in Wilmington since ''Firestarter''.
De Laurentiis had searched unsuccessfully for a ''
Gone with the Wind
Gone with the Wind most often refers to:
* ''Gone with the Wind'' (novel), a 1936 novel by Margaret Mitchell
* ''Gone with the Wind'' (film), the 1939 adaptation of the novel
Gone with the Wind may also refer to:
Music
* ''Gone with the Wind'' ...
''-style location that would suit the vision of the film. After encountering an issue of "Southern Accents" magazine that featured the historic
Orton Plantation
The Orton Plantation is a historic plantation house in the Smithville Township of Brunswick County, North Carolina, United States. Located beside the Cape Fear River between Wilmington and Southport, Orton Plantation is considered to be a nea ...
, near Wilmington, he, producer
Frank Capra Jr.
Frank Warner Capra (March 20, 1934 – December 19, 2007), known as Frank Capra Jr., was an American film and television producer. He was one of the three children of film director Frank Capra and his second wife, Lucille Warner. His own so ...
, and
Martha De Laurentiis travelled to the area for a location scout, and decided the property would be perfect as the headquarters for the evil government agency that was to track down Charlie (Barrymore).
De Laurentiis approached James and Luola Sprunt, who at the time owned Orton, and surprised them by asking to buy the property so he could set the home ablaze for a dramatic scene in the film. They declined, but offered to let the production use the property for exterior shots and some small interior scenes. A smaller scale replica of the main house was built for the actual fire scene. Having since been used in dozens of films and television shows since ''Firestarter'', Orton is now owned by
Louis Moore Bacon
Louis Moore Bacon (born July 25, 1956) is an American investor, hedge fund, hedge fund manager, and philanthropist. He is the founder and chief executive of Moore Capital Management.
''Forbes, Forbes Magazine'' estimates his net worth to be U ...
.
Reception
Metacritic
Metacritic is a website that review aggregator, aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted arithmetic mean, weighted average). M ...
assigned the film a weighted average score of 50 out of 100, based on seven critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews".
Roger Ebert
Roger Joseph Ebert (; June 18, 1942 – April 4, 2013) was an American film critic, film historian, journalist, screenwriter, and author. He was a film critic for the ''Chicago Sun-Times'' from 1967 until his death in 2013. In 1975, Ebert beca ...
gave the film two stars out of four, and wrote, "the most astonishing thing" about it was "how boring it is...there's not a character in this movie that is convincing, even for a moment, nor a line in this movie that even experienced performers can make real;" and, "we don't feel sorry for Barrymore because she's never developed as a believable little girl -- just a plot gimmick."
After seeing a rough cut, Stephen King declared it “One of the worst of the bunch” of the adaptations of his work he had seen, dubbing it “flavorless.” He and director Mark Lester later fought over the comments, though King told ''Cinefantastique'' he feels ''Firestarter''’s producer was responsible for its failings.
Colin Greenland
Colin Greenland (born 17 May 1954 in Dover, Kent, England) is a British science fiction writer, whose first story won the second prize in a 1982 Faber & Faber competition. His best-known novel is ''Take Back Plenty'' (1990), winner of both majo ...
reviewed ''Firestarter'' for ''
Imagine
Imagine may refer to:
* Imagination
Music Albums
* ''Imagine'' (Armin van Buuren album), 2008
* ''Imagine'' (Eva Cassidy album), 2002
* ''Imagine'' (Janice Vidal album), 2012
* ''Imagine'' (John Lennon album), 1971
** ''Imagine: John Lennon' ...
'' magazine, and stated that "I suspect the story was ruined before it ever got to the actors: spoilt by oversimplification and the surgical removal of all King's narrative intelligence. The great final conflagration comes as a relief. Yet another movie with all its conviction reserved for the special effects."
Soundtrack
''Firestarter'' is the twenty-second major release and fifth soundtrack album by the German electronic music group
Tangerine Dream
Tangerine Dream is a German electronic music band founded in 1967 by Edgar Froese. The group has seen many personnel changes over the years, with Froese having been the only constant member until his death in January 2015. The best-known lineup ...
.
AllMusic
AllMusic (previously known as All Music Guide and AMG) is an American online music database. It catalogs more than three million album entries and 30 million tracks, as well as information on musicians and bands. Initiated in 1991, the databas ...
rated the soundtrack four out of five stars.
Personnel
*
Edgar Froese
Edgar Willmar Froese (; 6 June 1944 – 20 January 2015) was a German musical artist and electronic music pioneer, best known for founding the electronic music group Tangerine Dream in 1967. Froese was the only continuous member of the group ...
– keyboards, electronic equipment, guitar
*
Christopher Franke
Christopher Franke (born 6 April 1953) is a German musician and composer. From 1971 to 1987, he was a member of the electronic group Tangerine Dream. Initially a drummer with The Agitation, later renamed Agitation Free, his primary focus eventua ...
– synthesizers, electronic equipment, electronic percussion
*
Johannes Schmoelling
Johannes Schmoelling (born 9 November 1950 in Lohne, Germany) is a German musician and keyboard artist. He was a member of the prolific electronic music group Tangerine Dream from 1979 to 1985.
A classically trained musician, he began playing pi ...
– keyboards, electronic equipment
Reboot
In April 2017,
Jason Blum
Jason Ferus Blum "Jason Ferus Blum was born in LA in 1969 to Shirley Neilsen, an art professor, and Irving Blum, an art dealer" (; born 1969) is an American film and television producer. He is the founder and CEO of Blumhouse Productions, whic ...
and
Akiva Goldsman
Akiva J. Goldsman (born July 7, 1962) is an American filmmaker. He is known for making motion pictures and adaptations of popular novels.
Goldsman's filmography as a screenwriter includes ''The Client''; ''Batman Forever'' and its sequel '' Ba ...
announced that they were rebooting ''Firestarter'' for Universal and
Blumhouse
Blumhouse Productions (; also known as BH Productions or simply BH) is an American film and television production company founded in 2000 by Jason Blum.
It is known mainly for producing horror films, such as ''Paranormal Activity'', ''Insidiou ...
, with Goldsman co-writing with
Scott Teems
Scott Teems is an American film director, screenwriter, and producer best known for his work on ''That Evening Sun'' (2009), '' The Quarry'' (2020), ''Halloween Kills'' (2021), and '' Firestarter'' (2022).
Career
In 2009, Teems started his car ...
. In December, 2019,
Keith Thomas was announced as director. In September 2020,
Zac Efron
Zachary David Alexander Efron (; born October 18, 1987) is an American actor. He began acting professionally in the early 2000s and rose to prominence in the late 2000s for his leading role as Troy Bolton in the ''High School Musical'' trilo ...
was cast as Andy McGee. In February 2021,
Michael Greyeyes
Michael Greyeyes (born June 4, 1967) (Muskeg Lake Cree Nation) is an Indigenous Canadian actor, dancer, choreographer, director, and educator.
In 1996, Greyeyes portrayed Crazy Horse in the television film ''Crazy Horse''. In 2018, Greyeyes port ...
was cast to play John Rainbird. Production commenced in May, 2021. In June 2021, Ryan Kiera Armstrong was cast in the lead role of Charlie McGee.
References
External links
*
*
*
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Firestarter
Firestarter (franchise)
1980s psychological thriller films
1980s science fiction horror films
1984 films
1984 horror films
American science fiction horror films
American science fiction thriller films
American supernatural thriller films
1980s English-language films
Films about psychic powers
Films based on works by Stephen King
Films directed by Mark L. Lester
Films scored by Tangerine Dream
Films shot in North Carolina
Films set in Connecticut
Films with screenplays by Stanley Mann
Universal Pictures films
1980s American films