HALLOWEEN HANGOVER: FIRESTARTER (2022) ***

In my review for The Black Phone, I mentioned that child abuse is kind of like last taboo in horror films.  I guess I was wrong.  Animal cruelty is probably the next-to-last.  This unnecessary but surprisingly effective remake of Stephen King’s Firestarter manages to combine the two in a scene of appalling repugnance that you just have to tip your hat to director Keith Thomas for Going There.

In it, the pyrokinetic kid Charlie (Ryan Kiera Armstrong) is learning to harness her flamethrowing superpowers when she happens upon an alley cat.  She goes to pet the seemingly friendly feline when the cat scratches her.  Since the kid only uses her powers while under mental duress, she lashes out at the cat and cooks that thing alive.  But here’s the kicker:  The thing ain’t dead.  The half-burned/half-fluffy kitty-witty is still mewling while its crispy catty-watty body is a smoldering mass of burnt flesh and orangy-worngy cuteness.  Since her dad, (Zac Efron) is trying to teach her how to control her gifts, he tells her she has to finish what she starts, so she nukes the poor scruffy-wuffy-itty-bitty-kitty-snookums.  

I bet this scene even made Stephen King say, “GODDAMN.  Get Sarah McLaughlin on the phone.”

I know Efron is probably trying to shed his clean-cut High School Musical image, and thanks to his participation in this rank-ass scene, I would say, “MISSION ACCOMPLISHED!”

Yes, this scene is mean, nasty, and crude, but you definitely won’t find shit like this in that Drew Barrymore flick.  

John Carpenter did the music, which is interesting because he at one point was going to direct the 1984 version.  That didn’t pan out, but I guess providing the score to this nasty piece of work was an OK consolation prize.  I can imagine he didn’t want to do it at first, but then the filmmakers probably showed him the cat scene and he was like, “Shit, where do I sign on?”

I’m not going to lie.  While Firestarter won’t wind up on anybody’s “Best Of” lists of Stephen King adaptations or find its way onto any “Year End Top Ten” countdowns, it remains a better-than-expected remake.  I guess that had something to do with my expectations being in the toilet, but still.  Even without the showstopping cat scene, by the time Charlie was torching government agents in a Day-Glo lit secret facility while Carpenter’s tech-noir music was thumping and bumping, I had to admit, I was having a good time.

Then again, what do I know?  I liked The Dark Tower.

Gloria Reuben, who plays the head of “The Shop” gets the best line of the movie when she says, “She’s been brainfucked from birth!”