Fire Syndrome

I really wanted to love Spontaneous Combustion: I like the basic idea, Brad Dourif is a cool actor, Tobe Hooper is the legendary director responsible for my favourite horror film, and some of the flame effects are pretty intense (I repeat: 'some'). Hell, there's even a fun cameo from John Landis. The problem is that the film just doesn't make a lot of sense.

Dourif plays Sam, a young man who discovers that the anti-radiation experiment which caused his parents to spontaneously combust in the 1950s is now responsible for some equally strange side effects in his own body. As Sam tries to prevent himself turning into a small pile of smouldering ash, he realises that his whole life has been a lie perpetrated by sinister industrialist Lew Orlander (William Prince).

With some incomprehensible cobblers about an evangelist who preaches to Sam over the radio, a puzzling sub-plot involving a nuclear power station, a killer who inexplicably uses glowing green goop in a syringe to bump people off, and the never-adequately explained presence of a continually growing birthmark on Sam's hand, I lost the plot about half-way through and had to content myself with the occasionally impressive body burn stunts and a modicum of manky make-up effects.

The first movie made by Hooper after his unsuccessful three film deal with Cannon, Spontaneous Combustion unsurprisingly didn't set the box-office on fire either, and the director's career has failed to reignite ever since.

God i love those transparent, glowing phones and radios that chick has.

Anyway, not as bad as many people say it is. I'm actually a fan of Tobe Hooper's later work (well, some of it). I think people expect far too much of him based on the cultural impact of TCM and its just not fair. Tobe Hooper's films have always been rather fun and campy, while simultaneously making (sometimes rather heavy handed) sociocultural critiques. As others have noted, Spontaneous Combustion has underlying themes relating to the way that the 50's atomic bomb influenced and informed the culture of the 80's. A lot of biting references to the 'nuclear family' and its place in society as well as how both the presence and absence can affect us as we grow up and become adults. I honestly have no idea why most people say this started his downward slide cause its actually pretty good- a lot better than his remake of Invaders, that's for sure.

Nevada desert, 1955. Peggy and Brian Bell, are being experimented on by the US Army to test the effects of exposure to atomic energy whilst testing a nuclear bomb. The test seems to go well, and the Bells are located in a picturesque suburbia. However, after giving birth to their son, the couple suddenly spontaneously combusted, a clear effect of the nuclear fallout. The baby boy survives them, and grows up to be Sam (Brad Dourif).

So we flash forward to the present day, where Sam's freakish ability to combust becomes increasingly dangerous to both himself and others around him. In one scene (with a cameo from John Landis), Sam has called into a radio psychic DJ - who has now gone off the air - and gets through to the Landis' radio technician who refuses to pass him onto the DJ (Dr Persons - played by Joe Mays). This increases Sam's anger (which as we have seen previously, makes Sam burnier), and he projects fire through the phone (in a pseudo-telekinetic flash), which results in fire streaming from the knee-caps of poor Landis. Sam's main goal is to find out about his parents and to determine why these phenomena keep occurring.

Tobe Hooper has not had it easy since the release of exceptionally brilliant debut The Texas Chain-Saw Massacre (1974). All of his subsequent films have either fallen foul of studio intervention (Death Trap (1977), The Funhouse (1981)), executive producer Steven Spielberg's ultimate overbearing on-set presence (Poltergeist (1982), or just poorly conceived ideas (Lifeforce (1985), Invaders from Mars (1986) and Texas Chain-Saw Massacre 2 (1986). He seems only in the latter part of the '80's produce Stephen King-like projects, either directly adapting a King novel (Salem's Lot (1979 -TV mini-series), or lifting pseudo-King story devices, much like Spontaneous Combustion. The use of fire as a telekinetic ability had been previously 'explored' in Kings Firestarter.

This is not a great film. The production values are akin to the TV movies/series' that were being broadcast at the time. this was seen throughout the genre in the early years of the decade. This period is almost a vacuum of popular visual culture, with the exception of one horror, the TV series Twin Peaks (1990-1991). The camera movements and compositions are standard television production. Aside from the lack of visual flare, there is one element that never really fails to please. That is of course Brad Dourif. I find everything that Dourif is in to be thoroughly fun to watch. Even, as in this performance, when he is wildly over-the-top. His eyes intense, and his vociferousness projected directly into you brain, sharp and direct. No one does sweaty anger like Dourif does. So, in conclusion. S**t film, but it is totally be forgiven cause Brad Dourif is in it.

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Spontaneous Combustion is a very sad horror effort from legendary director Tobe Hooper. I was hoping this was before Hooper's downward spiral of Night Terrors, The Mangler, and Crocodile, but I think this is the film that started that spiral. I'm still finding it hard to believe it was as bad as it was. Tobe Hooper directing, Brad Dourif starring...that's horror royalty right there. I found Dourif to be disappointing in this one as well. That was hard to type because he's so good in everything else he does (if you want to challenge that statement check out One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest). I think he should have just said no to this role. I was expecting a very dark film with a brooding anti-hero. What I got was a comical bore, and you can bet that's not on purpose. You reach a point in the film where you ask yourself "What in the f*ck is going on?" And the ending is pathetic at best. Not even a fiery John Landis cameo nor a radio voice-over by Buck Flower could save this one. Go watch Firestarter instead.

I really don't understand why so many people hate this movie! I mean, I cry every time I see the end of it, I love the music that gets played over the end credits (the one I like to call the 'Sam & Lisa love theme',) I love the acting, and I love the *tragic* relationship between the two main characters.

Brad Dourif's always been one of my favourite actors, and I think it's really cool that he puts so much into his acting in 'Spontaneous Combustion' that he is actually sweating. (Remember that scene in the phone box when he's talking to Lisa and asking her 'what was in those pills you gave me?'

I think Tobe Hooper did really well making this one. (I'm looking forward to seeing his new film; 'Brew', which also stars Brad Dourif and Bill Moseley from 'House of 1000 Corpses.')