Editor’s Note: This article contains spoilers for “Firestarter.” 

Beloved horror mastermind, Stephen King, has been renowned for his work since his first novel, “Carrie,” in 1974. A large number of his most inventive novels have made it to the big screen, including his eighth work of fiction, “Firestarter.” The reboot, starring Ryan Kiera Armstrong as sweet, young pyrokinetic Charlie McGee, and Zac Efron as her loving and protective father with telepathic hypnosis, Andy McGee, came out in theaters and on the streaming platform Peacock on May 13. 

Charlie’s story begins in 1969 when an ill-intentioned government organization called, “The Shop,” did experiments on college students with a drug known as Lot Six in exchange for $200. Little did the participants know, the drug was altering their chromosomes, giving them various psionic abilities. Young Vicky (Sydney Lemmon) and Andy fell in love and unknowingly passed down their modified genes to their daughter Charlie — born with her “firestarting” capabilities, among other talents that her parents possessed including precognition, mental domination and telepathy. 

The novel follows the story of a government chase after Vicky and Andy attempt to suppress and hide 8-year-old Charlie’s powers from “The Shop,” who is after the McGees so that they can use their powers, specifically Charlie’s, for themselves as weapons of mass destruction. King’s iconic tale of government wariness due to the war in Vietnam becomes a narrative of father-daughter resilience and bonding in the newest edition of “Firestarter.” 

Keith Thomas’ updated version of “Firestarter” takes many liberties from the source material, but King himself has commended his work. 

“I’m always curious about what people do with the basic materials that I’ve given them … I read the script beforehand, and I thought to myself, okay, what they’ve done here is they have concentrated the story and made it a family story. And I love that. They’ve kept the major beats in the story and thank God they got a real Native American to play John Rainbird. That was a step in the right direction,” he said in an interview with Vanity Fair. 

The familial focus of the “Firestarter” reboot enhances the viewing experience by making it desirable, relatable and emotional. While the prospect of government tests gone wrong is sinister, it is relatable in the way that parents desperately want to protect their children. As they force her to suppress her powers and channel her firestarting powers into water if they get too overwhelming, Andy and Vicky demonstrate their concern for “The Shop” discovering them. Puberty and problems with bullies at school push Charlie to the brink and an outburst leaves the McGees in panic. Andy and Vicky’s bond with their daughter is much more believable in the reboot, adding a layer of depth that was not present before, which in turn makes Andy’s demise at the hands of his own daughter in the film much more heart-wrenching. In the novel, his death is almost uneventful, lost in a sea of other simultaneous deaths. 

The acting and cinematography in the 2022 film is much more convincing than the 1984 original starring Drew Barrymore as Charlie. Blumhouse Productions spun the film into a thriller with intense, thematic music and much better special effects, which ensured that the horror effect is much more present. 

While the 1984 film aligned relatively closely with the events of the novel, Blumhouse’s includes updates that diversify the cast and viewing experience. The head of “The Shop,” Captain James “Cap” Hollister (Martin Sheen) in the original was portrayed as a woman named Jane Hollister (Gloria Reuben) in the reboot. 

John Rainbird (Michael Greyeyes), an apathetic skilled assassin hell-bent on killing Charlie himself, shows elements of compassion in this film, rather than being entirely cold-blooded. He also has his own psionic abilities from experiments, which bonds him with Charlie in an honest way, rather than artificially due to deception. 

When Charlie kills her father using her powers, it marks a milestone in her development as an independent, young woman about to take on the world by herself. However, the film ends with Charlie sparing Rainbird, and they walk off together as two escaped, exploited experiments as “The Shop” burns to the ground. Their relationship in the film seems genuine, but due to his character in King’s novel, a layer of skepticism remains, and it’s left up in the air if Rainbird is truly looking out for Charlie’s best interest. 

King’s admiration of the film left him wishing he had thought of some of the alterations made by Thomas. 

“Sometimes movie people think up things and you say, ‘I wish I had done that.’ In this movie, Andy becomes a kind of counselor to try to talk people out of their bad habits. And he does it by ‘pushing’ them. There's a woman at the beginning who's a smoker and he's talking her out of it,” he said. 

His love for this reboot is in direct contrast to his reaction to the 1984 film, which he viewed unfavorably and claims to have never rewatched. 

“I've seen this remake three times already,” he said in remarks to the new film. 

Because of the intense detail with which King writes each of his works, the film adaptations leave a great chunk of the plot to be desired by audiences. His mind is unlike any other author, churning out dense, original works of literature consistently since the ‘70s, and while movie magic makes his stories come to life, they are lacking in the richness King brings to each page. 

One of his most revisited themes is the power of children in horror. Kids are often underestimated, especially in the case of little girls like Charlie. His stories are anti-authority, authentic and exceptionally unique as he utilizes children to defeat the monsters in which he creates. This way, they serve as coming-of-age stories that chill readers to their very core, while igniting a deep sense of familiarity and uncanny understanding. 

“Firestarter” is no exception to this recurrent King theme, and it is a great place to start tapping into King’s genius repertoire. While both films exhibit their own pockets of brilliance, the new film offers a fresh and frightening perspective much more psychologically bending than its predecessor. 

Lillian Dunn is an Entertainment Staff Writer for the spring 2022 quarter. She can be reached at lbdunn@uci.edu.