Firestarter, The Movie

The Hunt

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I finished Firestarter a couple months ago and decided to watch the movie. Turns out, getting a hold of this would become a small - albeit stupid - personal quest. "I'm not going to Amazon this," I told my wife. It was a major motion picture, big budget and heavy promotion; I shouldn't have to turn to the internet to dig up a copy. Besides, I didn't want to wait on the United States mail.

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Hollywood Video, which was going out of business, didn't have a copy. Neither did other local video stores. Walmart didn't have it. "Oh!" One clerk said after looking it up, "we don't carry that, and we won't." Why? "It's out of print." My eyes widened. really? Out of print! Our family headed out for vacation, and I reluctantly admitted I'd have to give in and buy it off the internet. However, I found a used bookstore in Hemet California which had a massive DVD section.

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Lost In translation

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I really liked the book. Firestarter the movie is a very faithful rendition of this story. Scene for scene I could point to where they were in the book. The chase scene at the beginning, the farm, the Shop, even the horses were all there. However, something doesn't connect here.

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You know, you can buy a translation of the Bible that is a literal "word for word" translation into English, but a Greek or Hebrew scholar will tell you something is still lost in translation. That's what happens here: Something is lost in translation.

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John Carpenter said just that. Carpenter had considered directing the film. He told Fear magazine (quoted in Creepshows), "The problem with King's novels are that sometimes they're a bit funky. The plot doesn't translate to the movies that well. Fire starter was one project that I was involved with for a while. I thought that one could have been good because there you have a very clear understanding of what's happening. Unfortunately it didn't work out in the end." p.38

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What happened?

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Specifically, the acting and scenes feel wooden. I said to my wife, "It feels like a soap opera." George C. Scott's performance is dry, lifeless. he is not a convincing Indian, either. Drew Berrymore portrays an overly emotional Charlie; where the book gave us a kid who was very much in charge.

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When the farmer takes Charlie and Andy to his farm we are introduced to his wife. Only, she doesn't come across to me as the farmers wife. She's just a lady dressed up in the right gear, but she doesn't feel like she belongs. That seems to run throughout the movie. People are playing roles, but they don't feel like they belong. From The Shop to lead characters, it isn't smooth.

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Some of the horror from the book was cut. For instance, suicide by garbage disposal was missing. I note this only because King used that slice of horror right at a point the book was starting to sag a little. It beefed up the middle of the book. By cutting that detail, the scenes of captivity at The Shop just drag on.

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King said about the movie, "The parts were all there, but the total was somehow much less than the sum of those parts." (Creepshows, p.39)

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Tony Magistrale has an interesting chapter in his book Hollywood's Stephen King. In a chapter about the Lost Children, he discusses the real lead character in firestarter is John Rainbird. If that is the case, I don't think George C. Scott's performance pulled it off.