Movies
‘Firestarter’ Review – Modern Reimagining of Stephen King’s Novel Fails to Ignite
Bloody Disgusting’s Firestarter review is spoiler-free.
The Stephen King renaissance continues with a modern adaptation of his 1980 novel, Firestarter. Considering the lackluster response to the 1984 adaptation, it’s likely long overdue. But the real question is whether there’s any thematic depth or storytelling to mine amidst superhero cinema’s current oversaturation and popularity. While The Vigil director Keith Thomas does get Firestarter off to an energetic and engaging start, this reimaging ultimately fails to ignite.
The exposition of how couple Andy (Zac Efron) and Vicky (Sydney Lemmon) gained supernatural abilities, courtesy of an experiment, gets relayed over the opening credits. One nightmare sequence later, Firestarter jumps a decade ahead, where Andy and Vicky attempt to raise their gifted daughter Charlie (Ryan Kiera Armstrong) and avoid detection by the federal agency that would reclaim them. As if being perpetually on the run isn’t draining enough, Charlie is losing her struggle to repress her mounting powers. Cue an incendiary event that places the family back on the agency’s radar, putting them all in danger.
(from left) Vicky (Sydney Lemmon) and Andy (Zac Efron) in Firestarter, directed by Keith Thomas.
Written by Halloween Kills scribe Scott Teems, Firestarter breaks down into two vastly different halves. The first half builds character dynamics and establishes the emotional stakes. Andy and Vicky are doting parents but with two distinctly different approaches to parenting a young child with immense combustible power. Complicating the conflicting ideals are the contrasting yet similar ways their diminished abilities are ill-equipped to support and control Charlie’s tenuous restraint of her emotions, often resulting in catastrophe. Zac Efron brings a lot to his role, doing a lot of heavy lifting in the front half.
Once Rainbird (Michael Greyeyes) enters the equation fully, prompting a more action-heavy shift with the family on the run, the script derails. Early explorations of morality and consequences get dropped in favor of pyrotechnics, choppy and bland action sequences, and thinly rendered archetypical baddies in Captain Hollister (Gloria Reuben).
It’s all significantly underdeveloped. There’s a clear arc intended for Rainbird, a significant departure from the source material, but Greyeyes is woefully underutilized. While Firestarter wants to make Rainbird an imposing central antagonist, his screen time is far too limited and cringe dialogue too cryptic to grasp motivations and identity fully.
Michael Greyeyes as Rainbird in Firestarter, directed by Keith Thomas.
The entire back half gets rushed. It eschews the source material in favor of a streamlined narrative set in a nondescript concrete facility. A central internal struggle gets tidily squared away with a simple montage. Set pieces, major confrontations, emotional payoffs, and the climax come across so haphazardly that none of it lands. The goodwill built up in the front half gets squandered by the strange narrative and stylistic choices.
It results in a disjointed adaptation that entails two very different features at diverging levels of craft. It feels like chunks of story were excised, leaving behind remnants that hint toward something more interesting. Its protagonists fare much stronger, all given a bit more to work with and time to develop them. The antagonists are so blandly and vaguely written that Firestarter collapses quickly once the narrative attempts to widen the scope beyond the family’s cozy bubble. Despite a strong performance by Zac Efron, a few fun charred corpses, John Carpenter‘s superior score, and brisk pacing, Firestarter winds up mirroring Charlie’s story a little too closely. A promising beginning comes unraveled by the desire to burn it all down.
Firestarter releases in theaters and on Peacock on May 13, 2022.
This week kicked off with the release of hippo horror movie Hungry at home, and four more horror movies have arrived for at-home viewing as we head into the final weekend of June.
Here are the new horror movies that released on Friday, June 26, 2026!
The Halloween season can no longer be contained to the months of September and October, with “Summerween” becoming a thing in recent years. Essentially, it allows for Halloween to bleed into the warmer Summer months, and the first ever Summerween movie has arrived.
The Asylum released Summerween onto Digital outlets today.
In the film from writer/director Ryan Ebert, “On Summerween, a former circus clown escapes a mental institution to return to his abandoned mansion and hunt the teens partying there.”
Cole Chapleski, Chase Breithoff, Logan Roe, Sophia Sabol, and Clint Morrison star.
Director Ryan Ebert is the man behind a string of recent indie horrors we’ve covered, including Shark Side of the Moon, The Jolly Monkey, Jurassic Reborn, and Predator: Wastelands.
A witchy coming-of-age story from Dark Sky Films, Camp is now playing in select theaters.
Check your local listings to find a theater near you.
Camp is from writer-director Avalon Fast (Honeycomb, The Serpent’s Skin).
“Emily is the root cause of two devastating tragedies very early in her life, and she feels the weight of these accidents as though cursed. At her father’s suggestion, she takes a position at a summer camp for troubled youth to ease her guilt. When Emily arrives, she is welcomed by the other counselors, who accept her as she is and surround her with peace and forgiveness.
“As Emily begins to believe in a new kind of life, she starts to hear a voice whispering from deep in the woods — one that urges her to go home, and one that may be impossible to ignore.”
The film stars Zola Grimmer in her screen debut alongside Alice Wordsworth, Cherry Moore, Lea Rose Sebastianis (Castration Movie Part 1 & 2, In A Violent Nature), Ella Reece, Austyn Van de Kamp (This Too Shall Pass), Sophie Bawks-Smith (Honeycomb), Izza Jarvis, and Aiden Laudersmith.
Producers Tyler Perry and Jason Blum have joined forces for Peacock Original Strung.
The film is now streaming only on Peacock.
“A talented violinist takes a prestigious job as a music tutor for the gifted daughter of an influential and enigmatic family. As she becomes entangled in their opulent world, unsettling secrets begin to surface, forcing her to question her safety, her dreams, and even her sanity.”
Malcolm D. Lee (Scary Movie 5, Space Jam: A New Legacy) directs from a script written by Alan B. McElroy (Wrong Turn, Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers).
Chloe Bailey (“Swarm“), Lynn Whitfield (Jaws: The Revenge), Lucien Laviscount (“Scream Queens”), Anna Diop (Us), Coco Jones (Vampires vs. the Bronx), Langley Kirkwood (“Banshee”), and Romy Woods star in Peacock’s Strung.
Produced by Diablo Cody, director Meredith Alloway’s Forbidden Fruits brought a new coven of witches to the big screen earlier this year, and it’s now streaming on Shudder.
Lola Tung (“The Summer I Turned Pretty”), Victoria Pedretti (“The Haunting of Hill House”), Alexandra Shipp (Tragedy Girls), Gabrielle Union (Breaking In), and Emma Chamberlain star in Forbidden Fruits, released by IFC and Shudder.
Free Eden employee Apple secretly runs a witchy femme cult in the basement of the mall store after hours. But when new hire Pumpkin challenges the group’s ‘girl boss’ ways, the women are forced to face their own poisons or succumb to a bloody fate.
“Forbidden Fruits grabbed me by the neck the very first time I read it,” Diablo Cody said. “It’s one of the craziest, most creative, beautifully bonkers projects I’ve ever worked on.”
Meagan Navarro writes in her review for Bloody Disgusting, “Forbidden Fruits may not necessarily forge new terrain in the teen satire space, but Alloway brings so much style and energy to her well-cast single-location stage play adaptation for the Gen Z crowd.”
The film is an adaptation of playwright Lily Houghton’s stage play Of the Women Came the Beginning of Sin and Through Her We All Die. Alloway and Houghton co-adapted.
This week’s new release roundups are presented by HUNGRY.
All aboard the swamp tour from hell – this hippo isn’t playing games…
HUNGRY is now available on Digital. Watch it now!
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