I'm not telling anyone anything new when I say that the
field of Stephen King film adaptations is littered with landmines. Each step
taken is a risky one and if you keep going you are going to be injured - badly.
For decades now long into the night intoxicant-inspired conversations have
taken place arguing which King adaptations are actually worth a damn and which
ones are so bad they're unwatchable. Even films some consider classics (THE
SHINING, CARRIE, THE DEAD ZONE) have their detractors and some of the ones
generally thought of as crap are sometimes hailed as underappreciated works of
genius (THINNER, DREAMCATCHER, SLEEPWALKERS). I'm tempted to find a way to fund
a study that correlates the age of the first time viewer with the estimated quality of King adaptations but barring that unlikely money sinkhole there
seems no good test for judging where
someone will fall on any particular film.
Personally I think most of the worst versions of King
stories have been made for the small screen. Even the best of them neuter the
material, excising the elements that give his tales their visceral kick,
blanding them down to dull, middle of the road tales of clichéd horror. I
haven't seen any of the new crop of work being done for streaming services
(11.22.63, CASTLE ROCK) so maybe that is the visual medium that will allow his
often lengthy stories to perfectly blossom.
I've never considered Firestarter to be a particularly good
book and the film did nothing for me so I never returned to rewatch it even
when endless cable reruns were available. The only memories that had stuck with
me from over thirty years ago were of George C. Scott being pretty creepy and
Drew Barrymore's hair flying around whenever she used her pyrokinetic powers. These
were not the kind of memories to inspire a return visit. So, what did make me
watch FIRESTARTER (1984) again after all these years? A Blu-Ray release, of
course.
One of the film's biggest failings is the choice to very
rarely cut into the dialog scenes with any close-ups to give the actors some
help getting across the emotions of the characters. About thirty minutes into
the film I began to notice how almost all of the film is composed of master
shots of multiple actors who should be given some individual insert shots but
are not. This has the effect of not only dampening the effectiveness of several
performances and distancing us from the emotions onscreen but it also makes big
sections of the film pretty dull. Composing your film primarily of master shots
gives the feeling of watching a filmed play and destroys any dynamic energy you
might be able to coax from your actors. This is supposed to be a science
fiction horror movie! We need to have a sense of heightened passion, deep rage,
outbursts of intense power that frightens us but most of the time we are simply
distant observers of events of little consequence. This poor choice is the
mistake that damns FIRESTARTER to second rate status on the list of Stephen
King adaptations. For all the explosions, stunts and star power on display the
film just isn't very interesting and there is no excuse for it. The word boring should never be used to describe a horror film.
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