Hey everyone and welcome to the conclusion of TOASTY OVERDRIVE and man is it gonna end with a BANG.
So on to Firestarter; we start off with Andy McGee (played by David Keith) and his daughter Charlie (played by Drew Barrymore) on the run from unknown men. They’ve reached a taxi and escape from the man. We cut to a flashback where college students are given a dose of a hallucinogenic chemical compound called Lot-6 as an experiment. Andy and his future wife Vicky Tomlinson (played by Heather Locklear are one of the volunteers for this experiment. Later Andy and Vicky display mild telepathy between each other immediately falling in love. Back to present time Andy and Charlie arrive at the airport as they attempt to leave town. Charlie sees a man arguing with a pregnant woman and gets upset; so upset that she sets the man’s feet on fire. Talk about having a hot foot huh? Andy and Charlie leave the airport and check into a motel where we have another flashback where Andy and Vicky are married. Andy tries to teach Charlie to control her power but doesn’t turn out so well as she accidently burns her mother (Vicky) out of anger. Fortunately Vicky didn’t get burn too bad. The flashback continues as Andy returns home only to find Vicky dead and Charlie missing. It’s revealed that Charlie is being taken away by unknown men but Andy stops them by using his power to control; their thoughts as the flashback ends. We cut to a facility where we’re introduced to Hollister (played by Martin Sheen) and Rainbird (played by George C. Scott) as they discuss on how to capture the McGees and to use Charlie as a trained weapon.
Andy and Charlie hitch a ride to Knoxville, Tennessee and stayed at a farmer Irv’s (played by Art Carney) place. Irv notice something’s up and asks Andy the truth; Andy tells Irv that he and Charlie are being chase by the Department of Scientific Intelligence or The Shop. Basically they’re the same people behind the Lot 6 experiment years ago. Charlie senses the Shop agents arriving at the farm. Andy asks Charlie to use her power to stop and I think your know where this is going. After a few failed warnings, Charlie literally turns up the heat on the Shop agents. Even setting their cars on fire causing them to explode, the remaining agents take the hint and leave the farm. Irv offers Andy his jeep and he and Charlie drive off, they arrived at a summer cottage in the hope the Shop won’t find them. Unfortunately this doesn’t as Rainbird tracks them down by a letter mailed from their address. Rainbird arrives at the summer cottage and managed to incapacitate them with a tranquilizer gun. Charlie awakes at the Shop facility and is approached by Hollister while Andy in the next room is being force to take some pills which prevents him from using his powers. Later Rainbird approaches Charlie disguise as a friendly orderly, slowly gaining her trust in the hope to “use her at his disposal”. The next couple of day the Shop scientists test her pyrokinesis and results are quite pleasant for Hollister. But this doesn’t make Charlie too happy with this as they refuse to let see her father. Andy soon regains his powers upon not taking the pills; this gives him the upper hand as he puts Hollister under his control. Plotting on escaping by helicopter with Charlie and Hollister; Andy then tells Hollister send Charlie a message about the escape. But unfortunately Charlie tells Rainbird about the plan and sets a trap for Andy and Charlie at the stable. Charlie arrives at the stable with Andy following behind; a gunfight breaks between Rainbird and the mind controlled Hollister but Rainbird takes him out. Andy takes over Rainbird’s mind and tells him to jump, but only ended up injuring his leg and shoots Andy dead. Rainbird shoots at Charlie but she melts the bullet before it hits her and immediately burns Rainbird…TOASTY! With dying words Andy tells Charlie to “burn it all down” in order escape, in order that the Shop will never find her again. So in other words she mentally HULKS OUT and burns down everything. Even shooting these awesome fireballs at people; yeah sure these guys got guns but remember the near end of Pyrokinesis. Yup bullets are like marshmallows being thrown at her; so basically she kills everyone and escapes. The film ends with Charlie return Irv’s place on a rather happy note.
My Final Verdict: This film has a nice payoff in the end with its awesome fire effects. The flashbacks do help bring the plot just fine. This was Drew Barrymore’s first Stephen King film she starred in, the second is Cat’s Eye. Not sure if I’ll review this film, I’ll get back to you on that. But there’s another she stars in back in 1993 called Doppelganger, now that film I will review soon enough. Firestarter had a follow-up mini-series back in 2002 but Drew Barrymore never reprises her roll as Charlie and yes I’ll review that soon enough. So next time things will start to cool down a bit as we get back to our regularly schedule program as I review Deep Rising.
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