I really do commend Mark Lester for bringing genre fans a film that still holds up to this day. While it’s not at all a masterpiece or perfection, “Firestarter” almost thirty years later is still a really entertaining bit of genre fare that explores the tribulations of a young girl with a natural ability, and the men in her life. Lester’s adaptation of Stephen King’s novel doesn’t just make young Charlie’s powers her own superhuman ability, but in a way implements it to signify her emotions, particularly love and passion. Because deep down “Firestarter” is a love triangle between small Charlie, her father, and her new friend John. At first John is insistent on murdering Charlie, and once he manages to gain her trust and befriend her, his friendship turns in to passion and love.
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Finally after being stuck in a perpetual rut for almost a year and a half, “Attack of the Show” is fun again. Is it as good as it used to be? No, but is it the bottom of the viewing list as it used to be? Nope. Now with a new co-host, a new set, a clear idea on who the hell they’re trying to target for an audience (for a while they weren’t sure if they were appealing to nerds, tech geeks, or frat boys), “Attack of the Show” is on the right track once again. I can fondly recall Kevin Pereira interviewing a celebrity back in the middle of 2010 during the rut and asking them, “So what is it like to be on a show people actually watch?” And it’s an apt observation.
It’s Pinhead. In space! With his cenobites. In space! Someone opens the puzzle box. In space! And people are tortured and turned in to cenobites against their wills. In space! The aspect about “Bloodlines” is that even though it closes the original continuity, there’s still a host of questions never answered for the fans. One of them being, if it’s indicated in the original film that becoming a cenobite is based primarily on the subjects own sado-sexual desires that transforms them in to beings of unbridled sexual pain and pleasure, why is Pinhead still just a stock slasher who turns people in to cenobites against their wills? In space? It’s a surefire sign you’re in for a thrill ride when you see director Alan Smithee at it again.