Rating summary

Movie		3.5
Video		4.5
Audio		3.0
Extras		4.0
Overall		4.0

Firestarter Blu-ray Movie Review

"Back off!"

Reviewed by Dr. Stephen Larson March 13, 2017

Firestarter (1984) marked the eighth big screen feature to be adapted from a novel or short story by Stephen King. In the year prior, Christine became the first work to sit atop both the bestseller list and the box office. Due to that success, John Carpenter became involved with developing Firestarter as a possible feature. Carpenter wrote a script that while inspired by the subject, diverged substantially from King's 1980 novel. In seeking a screenplay that clung to the fidelity of the book, Universal Studios then hired veteran screenwriter Stanley Mann to adapt King's 428-page supernatural thriller. Legendary producer Dino De Laurentiis brought in his Italian crew to work on the project and hired Mark Lester (Class of 1984) to direct. After transforming into America's young sweetheart two years earlier in the mega hit E.T., eight-year-old Drew Barrymore was a no-brainer for Universal to cast as the title character, Charlene "Charlie" McGee.

Charlie and her father, Andrew McGee (David Keith), are on the run from government agents who are pursuing them for the acute hypnotic powers that they possess. Lester and his editors flash back to a sixties era scene in which Andy and his future wife, Vicky Tomlinson (Heather Locklear), take mild hallucinogenic drugs as part of a controlled experiment. There is also a scene in the backstory in which the audience's learns of toddler Charlie's pyrokinetic abilities (e.g., starting a piece of toast on fire). Andy has psychokinetic abilities and the film uses pulsing sound effects to delineate his mind-bending powers. (A nosebleed is the primary side effect.) Andy and Charlie are both dangerous and intriguing to the Department of Scientific Intelligence (DSI), a covert agency with a ranch headquarters in rural Virginia. The McGee fugitives hitch a ride with geriatric Irv Manders (Art Carney), who transports them to his farm where his younger wife, Norma (Louise Fletcher), shows Charlie the family chickens. But the DSI agents track the McGees to the Manders farm where Charlie confronts them with a (very explosive) standoff.

Don't provoke Charlie or else she will unleash her fiery powers on you!

Though not the caliber of prior King adaptations, Firestarter has a number of strengths and good things going for it. Barrymore deserves a ton of credit for carrying a movie that had fifty-odd filming days and delivering a sensitive and mature performance. Her chemistry with the always great George C. Scott is amazing and the two actors' scenes together are some of the best in the film. Scott is such a towering presence playing the psychopathic shaman, John Rainbird. (Lester tried out more than one hundred Indian actors for the role but none were up to par.) Scott has a ponytail and weak left eye but Barrymore is neither intimidated or scared of his appearance. Scott poses as "John the orderly" and tries to sweet- talk her into demonstrating and bequeathing her unique abilities to him. Martin Sheen is also very good as the DSI's Captain Hollister. The warmth and geniality he projects to Charlie belies his sinister motives and plans for the young girl. The other component working in the film's favor is Tangerine Dream's electronic score. Remarkably, the band wrote all the cues for the score, sent Lester the reels, and told him to match them to the film wherever he saw fit! Firestarter must have had a shrewd music editor and spotter because the cues function abundantly well as mood-enhancing pieces. Tangerine Dream's stunningly beautiful "Charlie the Kid" is played several times, notably during a father/daughter bonding at a summer cottage.

Firestarter also contains some average and mediocre performances. David Keith's Andy McGee shows his unconditional love for Charlie but his character fails to become fully three-dimensional. While Keith conveys loss and sadness for what happened to his wife, there are other times where Andy is too monotone. There were also opportunities for humor with Andy and Charlie that I think the film missed. Part of the blame then should also be assigned to Mann and Lester. (Andy is probably a richer and more realized character in the novel.) It could be a case in which Keith did not respond to Lester's direction as well as the other actors did. Universal would have been better off casting Kurt Russell as Andy. I believe Russell would have made a better pairing with Barrymore because he can shift more swiftly and adeptly from moments of drama and suspense to comedy better than Keith. Given Carpenter's early involvement on Firestarter, Russell surely would have been considered for the part but perhaps The Thing(1982)'s lukewarm box office performance dwindled Universal's enthusiasm for Russell? Keith was cast by studio executives based on his performance in An Officer and a Gentleman (1982). In addition, the film's other detriment is the DSI agents, who are depicted as card-stock villains. There are moments in the film where they're unintentionally silly, which affects the tone. Firestarter doesn't take itself too seriously but the wide shot where the agents are all standing on the Manders farmland reminds me of Cochran's factory workers in Halloween III, also released by Universal two years earlier. (But this is not a knock on HIII, which is very good.) As a side note, Firestarter features two stuntmen who played or went on to play Michael Myers: Dick Warlock and George Wilbur.

Firestarter Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Shout! Factory brings Firestarter to Blu-ray in the US with a deluxe "Collector's Edition." The label uses the AVC encode and puts the disc's contents on a BD-50. The main feature carries a very healthy average bitrate of 34999 kbps. Lester's film is presented in its original theatrical aspect ratio of 2.35:1. As I started watching Firestarter, I was skeptical because the CinemaScope framing elongated the faces. But when I saw what cinematographer Giuseppe Ruzzolini was doing with multiplane compositions and nature images, I was convinced that it's the proper ratio. The dense vegetation and beautiful wilderness scenes in Wilmington, North Carolina (where the film was shot) are lushly represented here. Greens are nicely saturated.

Shout! advertises this transfer as a 2K scan of the interpositive film element. This is the fourth time that the movie has been released on BD: by NSM Records in Austria, King Records in Japan, and Universal in the US. The Shout has better compression than the AT ( it doubles its average bitrate of 17999 kbps). The encodes on the two US BDs are comparable: Universal carries a mean bitrate of 33280 kbps while Shout! accommodates several extras and uses a total bitrate of 40.85 mbps. This is not the same transfer that my colleague, Martin Leibman, reviewed three years ago on the Universal BD-50. I have compared many screen captures from both editions and can indicate that Universal applied pretty heavy DNR while Shout! has retained a fair amount of grain. Shout! also offers a little more information on all four sides. Shout!'s is a bit sharper and I could notice a bit more detail. Skin tones are whiter on the Universal disc. Universal has boosted the grayscale and brightness levels in places. Colors appear more natural on the Shout! There are periodic white speckles on the Shout!'s picture (especially during the penultimate reel) but they are infrequent. There are no significant image stability issues. Shout! is the winner on all fronts.

Shout! has divided the feature up into its customary twelve chapter stops. Unfortunately, the label's BDs still do not accommodate the auto-resume function on players.

Firestarter Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Shout only provides the movie's original monaural recording, rendered here as a DTS-HD Master (encoded at 2014 kbps, 24-bit). The track reveals the age limitations of the mono sound track. Fidelity is alright but you may need to turn up the volume to hear all the dialogue. Fortunately, the master is in relatively good shape without any audible defects. Sound effects don't show a lot of range. It would have been better if Shout! had created (at minimum) an uncompressed stereo mix to open up Tangerine Dream's music. It's nice to have the original audio here (and it does its job) but Shout! could have upped the ante with additional mixes.

Shout! has supplied optional English SDH, which contain only a few errors in transcription.

Firestarter Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

None of the Firestarter DVDs released worldwide contained any bonus features, aside from a trailer on Universal's U.S. SD disc. Shout! has delivered all new materials:

• NEW Audio Commentary with Director Mark L. Lester - this commentary track by Lester features a surprisingly high number of gaps. Lester repeats a lot of the same information that he covers in the documentary. Shout! usually employs a moderator to facilitate filmmaker commentaries and needed one here to fill in dead air. In English, not subtitled.

• NEW Playing with Fire: The Making of FIRESTARTER – Featuring Interviews with Director Mark L. Lester, Actors Freddie Jones, Drew Snyder, Stuntman/Actor Dick Warlock, and Johannes Schmoelling of Tangerine Dream (52:40, 1080p) - an absolutely wonderful retrospective doc led by the affable and soft-spoken Lester, who gives many tidbits about the movie's origins. Freddie Jones, who played Dr. Joseph Wanless, shares some precious memories of the North Carolina shoot and his observations of Barrymore. Drew Snyder and stuntman Dick Warlock also give their recollections. Additionally, there are thoughts about the score by Johannes Schmoelling. In English and German (with English subs).

• NEW Tangerine Dream: Movie Music Memories – An Interview with Johannes Schmoelling (17:07, 1080p) - an exceptional and detailed interview with Schmoelling, who takes us back to Tangerine Dream's roots, discusses the use of the Korg synthesizer, and the Berlin band's collaboration with Michael Mann on Thief. This is a first-rate interview on par with Criterion's best filmmaker discussions.

• NEW Live Performance of "Charlie's Theme" by Johannes Schmoelling of Tangerine Dream (2:33, 1080p) - video footage of Schmoelling playing "Charlie's Theme" on his studio piano.

• Theatrical Trailers (3:41)- two American trailers for Firestarter: one in anamorphic widescreen and the other in full screen.

• Radio Spots (4:34) - about a half-dozen radio spots that originally aired to promote Firestarter in 1984. These are clear recordings that sound good.

• Still Gallery (5:57, 1080p) - Shout! has done a flawless job of assembling this still gallery comprised of production photos, lobby cards, and posters. The slide show presentation centers and blows up the B&W photos from Universal's press kit so you can read the fine print in the captions! Shout! also has unearthed the original Japanese marketing materials for the film complete with pictures.

Firestarter Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Despite some problems, Firestarter is an above-average fantastical thriller, buoyed by the performances of Barrymore, Scott, and Sheen. The film is also worth experiencing to hear Tangerine Dream's ethereal music in tandem with some memorable scenes. Shout! delivers a top-notch transfer and some excellent supplements. Fans of the cast and King should definitely pick this up. VERY HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.