There’s bad luck in store this Friday the 13th. Not just for all those involved with Blumhouse’s limp new take on Stephen King’s Firestarter but also for the cursed few who’ll end up watching a misbegotten theatrical release wisely coupled with a more modest US streaming launch on Peacock. Whatever the screen size, it’s a non-starter.
Based on one of the author’s less engaging yet still successful books, mixing elements of Carrie and The Dead Zone, straddling sci-fi, adventure and horror, Firestarter modernises a story that we now see far, far too often. Since its release in 1980 and the first adaptation in 1984, Hollywood has been consumed by the possibilities of superpowers, mostly on an increasingly, dizzyingly large stage but also in smaller self-contained stories. As Everything Everywhere All at Once continues to ride high, alongside the release of Marvel’s Doctor Strange and the Multiverse of Madness and Eskil Vogt’s The Innocents, we’re reminded that both arthouse and multiplex have reached superpower saturation. It’s perhaps why the arrival of Firestarter is even more of a bore, retelling a story we know all too well and don’t need to hear yet again.
