Firestarter is a 2022 horror thriller film directed by Keith Thomas (The Vigil), from a screenplay by Scott Teems (Halloween Kills) based on the novel by Stephen King, and is produced by Jason Blum (Halloween, The Invisible Man) for Blumhouse and Oscar® winner Akiva Goldsman (I Am Legend, Constantine) for Weed Road Pictures. It is a reboot of the 1984 film of the same name.

A girl with extraordinary pyrokinetic powers fights to protect her family and herself from sinister forces that seek to capture and control her. For more than a decade, parents Andy and Vicky have been on the run, desperate to hide their daughter Charlie from a shadowy federal agency that wants to harness her unprecedented gift for creating fire into a weapon of mass destruction.

The cast includes Zac Efron, Sydney Lemmon, Ryan Kiera Armstrong, Michael Greyeyes, Kurtwood Smith, John Beasley, and Gloria Reuben.

Firestarter made its debut in theaters and on the Peacock streaming service on May 13th.

THE GOOD

Put your hand up if you’ve seen the original Firestarter starring Drew Barrymore. Anyone? Anyone? Obviously, I can’t see you right now and have no idea if you have your hand up or not, but I am going to assume most of you kept your hands down. For one, the original came out back in 1984, and secondly, it just wasn’t very good. The film came out two years after the instant cult classic I assume most have seen, E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, and talk about a regression. Luckily Barrymore’s career remained intact as she beat out the “child actor curse”, many others weren’t quite as lucky. To get back on track, they decided to remake the film and put my guy Zac Efron in a leading role which was sure to at least garner some interest. I for one was intrigued and willing to give it a chance so I did, hoping for the best of course. Was Efron able to help Firestarter get re-ignited for a new generation?! Keep reading to find out!

Nope, not even a little bit. The flame fizzled out in the first five minutes of the film as audiences will quickly realize how ridiculous this premise is, causing them to lose interest pretty fast. Now I talked about Efron being a draw for the film and he was, but his performance isn’t exactly keeping people around until the end credits and I will touch on that more later in the review. The score is on the shortlist of positives as the duties were handled by horror legend John Carpenter and his fellow Halloween franchise composers Cody Carpenter and Daniel Davies. Umm so yeah, I wish I had more good things to say about Firestarter but I just don’t. I guess if you watch it sarcastically you might enjoy it more, but the fact that they technically consider this to be horror, well that in itself is pretty damn hilarious.

THE BAD

Remakes can be tough, I get that, but usually, the remake has an uphill battle due to the fact that the original was usually really good. I mean, why else are we remaking a movie if that’s not the case. Well, someone decided that remaking a mediocre Stephen King adaptation from 1984 was a good idea, and I would love to give that person a nice slap aside the old noggin’. All jokes aside, the original film which starred a young Drew Barrymore, was watchable but not much beyond that. Fast forward to 2022, and as if we don’t have enough bumps in the road in the last few years, here comes a remake with an entirely new cast, and I could honestly spend all day talking about why this movie shouldn’t have been made.

First of all, I am a big Stephen King guy. As far as book-to-film adaptations, even though a few have been less than great, he has knocked it out of the park more often than not. I often think back to Pet Sematary, which was actually recently remade as well. The original terrified me as a kid to the point where I thought any of our pets that passed away were going to walk into my room in the middle of the night. So yeah, not the recipe for a restful night’s sleep when you are 5-years old. And as far as the remake goes, I really enjoyed it all things considered. It all comes down to the story, and as long as you focus on the meat of the story, you have something to work with. But, with Firestarter, we have a little girl who shoots fire out of her hands and makes dishes fall off the dinner table. So yeah, not really much to work with. This brings me back to my original question, WHY are we remaking this movie?!

When you start with what I consider to be a poor concept, bad writing is sure to follow, right? Scott Teems, the man who wrote the screenplay sure didn’t have much to work with. Teems, who looks like he could star in a Rob Zombie film, is starting to carve out a career for himself as a horror writer after last year’s Halloween Kills, with two projects in post-production where he shares writing duties including another remake with The Exorcist, and Insidious 5. But I have to be honest here, I am far from sold on Teems and his ability to put together a script with any substance. I mean sure with Halloween Kills it is what it is, and although the story was pretty ridiculous more often than not, it scratched that slasher itch for fans of the franchise.

With Firestarter, the memo had to be clear, do something to make this movie not suck. Work with King and come up with some cool ideas. Did he do that? Nope, not even a little bit. But even worse than that, he managed to serve up dialogue that had me thinking Zac Efron, who played famed serial killer Ted Bundy recently let’s not forget, might need to go back to the Disney Channel. Seriously, the dialogue was trash, often felt forced, and was just cheesier than a well-made grilled cheese sandwich (apologies for the dad joke, couldn’t help myself). Fingers crossed this was just a misstep for Teems and his upcoming projects are worth watching, because if he pulls this crap again, he will find himself on my screenwriter blacklist (which I will create just for him).

This seems like a nice segue (anyone else think that was spelled “Segway” or am I the only idiot?) into the acting that was served up in Firestarter. Perhaps we can blame the casting team because they basically said hey Zac feel like starring in a movie surrounded by a mediocre cast? I imagine he was like sure I have nothing else going on, I’ll film my scenes in one weekend. Seriously, I like Efron as a actor and feel like he has proven his versatility time and time again, so I know this isn’t on him. With that being said, at times it honestly felt like he was having a hard time keeping a straight face during the more “dramatic” scenes. I can picture him laughing when he read over the script.

Efron stars alongside Sydney Lemmon, who plays his wife in the film. Lemmon fits the bill for someone I would consider to be an unknown actress who proved she isn’t yet ready for the bright lights of feature-films. She just wasn’t very convincing. I did find it funny that the marketing team referenced her role in HBO’s hit series Succession when promoting the film, but she was in one episode. Now she’s not horrible here, and she is gorgeous (just sayin’), but she really falters when she has to be a bit more serious and clearly struggles with that. Maybe she’ll get there, time will tell. Michael Greyeyes takes on the role of Rainbird, who is essentially the man who also has some abilities of his own and is hired to bring this little girl in. He was fine as far as his role in general, and probably a bright spot as far as the acting to be honest.

Gloria Reuben, who takes on the role of the diabolical Captain Hollister, tasked with acquiring the girl at all costs leading her to bringing Rainbird out of retirement, was brutal at times in my opinion. One scene in particular during the middle of the film she goes to see Dr. Wanless played by Kurtwood Smith to make him aware of the dire circumstances surrounding this dangerous little girl, and to say that her acting was cringeworthy might be generous. It was just downright silly, and she couldn’t have been less believable in this role.

I will save you the headache and not go too much in depth on the dialogue choices, but they are pretty bad. I mean, with such a ridiculous premise you either have to have a little bit of slapstick humor to balance things out, or find a way to make things really, really dark. Unfortunately the tone is just uncomfortable from start to finish, which ties in nicely with what I consider to be bargain-basement special effects. I mentioned how it seemed like Efron was trying to keep a straight face during the majority of his dramatic scenes, and one scene in particular stood out to me. Cover your ears, or eyes I suppose, if you are a big time cat lover because the scene I am referencing involves a cat getting barbecued “accidentally”. Basically it scratched the wrong little girl and burst into flames, I mean, these things happen right? Anyway, this cat is toast, literally, and Efron quickly reassures his daughter that it’s okay and they have a little burial for her in the back of this random parking lot. Efron decides to say a few nice words because he is a great guy after all, and as he is referring to the cat he refers to it as either a she or a he because of course he has no idea, and even throws in the “they” at the end just for good measure. Now I’m not sure if this was a knock on the current climate or a futile effort to seem with the current times, but if it is the latter I like the film a little bit more. So yeah, just picture the scene it sums up the movie pretty well.

THE VERDICT

An extremely unnecessary remake where the bad acting and special effects make it feel more like a spoof film than a horror thriller, Firestarter overstays it’s welcome pretty quickly and puts into question why this film was made in the first place. I can’t help but question screenwriter Scott Teems and his ability to come up with a screenplay with any substance or dialogue that isn’t cringeworthy, or even just an original idea or two. But this isn’t all on Teems, and to be honest every single person that worked on this film has some explaining to do. If I am Zac Efron, I am chalking this up as a fun exercise in what it’s like to star in a really, really bad movie. Can’t wait to see him in the Three Men and a Baby remake to get this bad taste out of my mouth.