Film

Firestarter (1984)

Director: Mark L Lester

Movie review

From Time Out Film Guide

Stephen King's novel not only concerns that most awkward of all combinations, the CIA and paranormal psychology, it has the episodic quality that is a hallmark of King's less filmable fiction. Barrymore (the sister in ET) plays a girl with telekinetic powers who is eventually captured and shoved into a government laboratory. Lester manages to maintain a fair level of suspense, and he is greatly helped by Scott, giving his best performance in years as the demonic CIA man sporting a sneer and a pony tail, but King's supernatural ideas need a human focus or they seem nearly idiotic. And, unlike the central figures in Carrie or The Shining, the heroine of Firestarter is just a rather wet little girl who happens to throw fireballs.

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