There’s been a lot of buzz about the latest Stephen King remake, Firestarter. Coming to theaters and Peacock on Friday the 13th of May, Firestarter will be joining the ranks of recent King movie remakes such as Carrie, Pet Sematary, and IT (Chapters 1 and 2). If you’re unfamiliar with the plot, Firestarter is a heart-warming coming-of-age drama about a young girl who navigates a difficult time in her life with the help of her father.
Except for the fact that this story was written by Stephen King. While there certainly are “warming” elements in the story, the temperatures involved are a lot more life-threatening.
The premise of the movie is about Charlie (Ryan Kiera Armstrong), a young girl who develops pyrokinesis, or the ability to create and manipulate fire. Her parents have known about this and have actively been trying to teach her how to suppress and hide these powers. After an incident at school draws the attention of a secret government agency known as “The Shop,” she realizes why it was so important for her to hide her abilities. Her parents, who have had previous experiences with the agency, must now run and fight for their lives to protect Charlie from falling into The Shop’s sinister clutches.
Watch the Firestarter Trailer
While the new film has just been released, this article will serve up a list of movies with similar themes and premises that you can watch in the meantime to prepare. Before getting into the list, let’s quickly break down the 3 main themes that link to the movies below.
The Main Themes of Firestarter
- A young person who begins to develop unique abilities/powers that could potentially make them superheroes… or supervillains
- A strong parent-child relationship where the parental-figure risks life and limb to protect the child with the supernatural abilities
- A secret government agency or group that will stop at nothing to capture or kill the child with supernatural abilities
The Darkest Minds (2018)
Based on the Alexandra Bracken YA novel of the same name, The Darkest Minds is a dystopian sci-fi thriller set in the not-too-distant future. When a disease wipes out 90% of the child and teenage population in the United States, the ones left behind develop unique abilities. The government sees this as a top-tier threat to humanity and begins to round up the surviving children, sometimes voluntarily given up by their parents. They are held and studied at a facility similar to that of a prison.
These kids are categorized by color, based on their abilities. Reds (who can control fire) and Oranges (who have telepathy and mind control abilities) are deemed the most dangerous and are meant to be killed on sight. Ruby (Amandla Stenberg) is an Orange, but she uses her powers to convince the scientists studying her that she is a Green, which labels her as a “safer” specimen. Ruby manages to escape the facility one night and joins some other kids in search of a safe haven that is protected by a resistance group known as the “Children’s League.”
This movie is available to rent on-demand on Amazon Prime, Google Play, and iTunes.
Carrie (2013)
Carrie, the 2013 remake of the 1976 film stars Chloe Grace Moretz (Greta) as the titular character. With the onset of puberty, social outcast Carrie White begins to develop telekinetic abilities. Her mother, Margaret (Julianne Moore) is a religious fanatic, and is mentally, physically, and verbally abusive to Carrie, sometimes locking her in a closet for hours to “contemplate her sins and pray for forgiveness.” To her mother, Carrie’s very existence is a sin.
After an incident where Carrie is bullied by a group of girls, Sue Snell (Gabriella Wilde) regrets her actions and asks her boyfriend, Tommy Ross (Ansel Elgort), to ask Carrie to prom as a kindness. With no friends of her own, Carrie jumps at the opportunity to go to prom with her crush. Her powers grow steadily as prom night draws closer, but unbeknownst to her, one of the girls who bullied her, Chris (Portia Doubleday) has plans to dump a bucket of pig blood on her at the dance. When this happens, it is the last straw for Carrie, and she unleashes her powers in full force on all those she perceives to have wronged her.
This movie is available to watch on Amazon Prime Video and Paramount+.
The New Mutants (2020)
The New Mutants is a superhero-horror Marvel Comic movie and is a spin-off of the X-Men film franchise. It follows several teenagers who all have unique abilities, thanks to their mutant DNA. They are all being held on an empty hospital campus that is surrounded by a protective force field. They are told by Dr. Cecilia Reyes (Alice Braga) that they are there because they have all caused some sort of catastrophic incident and that they are being kept there to learn how to better control their powers.
The newest addition to this group of teenagers is Native American Danielle “Dani” Moonstar (Blu Hunt), whose last memories before showing up at the hospital involve a violent tornado destroying the reservation that she and her family lived on. After it is discovered that Dani’s powers involve the physical manifestation of her fears as well as the fears of those around her, Dr. Reyes is instructed by “The Essex Corporation” to collect Dani’s DNA and then euthanize her. This results in an all-out battle for survival as Dani and the other teenagers fight for their freedom and their lives.
This movie is available to stream on HBO Max.
Hanna (2011)
Raised in absolute isolation in the wilderness of northern Finland by her father (Eric Bana), Hanna (Saoirse Ronan) is a 15-year-old girl trained for survival. During the day, he pushes her physically, teaching her to hunt and how to fight, and to always be mindful of her surroundings. At night, he sharpens her mind, having philosophical discussions in a multitude of different languages. He is training her to be an assassin, with her goal being to kill a woman named Marissa Weigler (Cate Blanchett).
While this movie doesn’t have the supernatural ability aspect, the strong bond that Hanna shares with her father in their fight for survival mirrors that of Firestarter’s Charlie McGee and her father Andy (Zac Efron) as they are hunted by a mysterious government agency. Also, similar to Firestarter, Hanna’s existence, and her abilities are a result of a controversial government experiment involving pregnant women to enhance the child’s DNA… thus creating a “super-soldier.”
This movie is available to stream on Hulu and Amazon Freevee.
Freaks (2018)
This sci-fi/thriller is about seven-year-old Chloe Lewis (Lexy Kolker) who has been kept in isolation her whole life. Her father, Henry (Emile Hirsch) has kept her inside a boarded-up abandoned house, insisting it’s a necessary precaution for her safety. She longs to venture outside, and when she finally manages to get outside, she meets an ice cream truck driver named Alan (Bruce Dern) who insists he is her maternal grandfather.
After some discussion with him, she learns that she has the abnormal ability of telepathy. Chloe learns that this is why her father keeps her isolated because there is a government agency known as the ADF (Abnormality Defense Force) that is actively hunting down and killing any people who have “abnormal” abilities. She also learns, through her grandfather, that her mother may very well still be alive and being held at one of the ADF facilities for testing.
This movie is available to stream on most streaming platforms such as Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, Youtube, and Peacock.
Logan (2017)
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Hugh Jackman without a doubt has given Marvel Comic fans the most iconic portrayal of the character The Wolverine. In this Wolverine swan-song film, Logan finds himself getting older and tired after centuries of violence. His injuries take longer to heal, he’s lost so many people over the years, and he is now tasked with the responsibility of protecting a young mutant girl, known as X-23 (Dafne Keen), who has the same regenerative abilities and organic bone claws as him.
X-23, or Laura, has been created using Logan’s DNA, which is why she has similar abilities. At the dying request of the nurse who passed Laura onto Logan’s responsibility, he now has to guide Laura and a small group of other young mutants to refuge across the Canadian border as she is being hunted by the biotechnology corporation known as Alkali-Transigen, led by chief of security, Donal Pierce (Boyd Holbrook).
In a scenario very similar to the one in Firestarter, Logan, Laura, and an aging Charles Xavier (Patrick Stewart) find themselves taken in by a kind horse farmer and his family. Unfortunately, in both movies, it seems that good deeds never go unpunished.
This movie is available to stream on Amazon Freevee.
Looper (2012)
Looper is a sci-fi thriller set in the near future and the even more distant future. When time-traveling capabilities became possible, they were quickly outlawed by the government, causing criminal organizations to utilize them as a “cleaner” method of body disposal. Joseph Gordon-Levitt (Inception) and Bruce Willis (Die Hard franchise) star as present and future versions of the same character; Joe.
In 2044, Joe (Gordon-Levitt) works as a “looper.” His job is to kill the people who are sent back in time by the future crime syndicate. The general population has also developed mild forms of telekinesis, which allows them to perform small party tricks, such as levitating a coin. When Joe’s future self appears before him one day as an intended kill, Joe hesitates, giving “Old Joe” (Willis) time to escape. Joe learns that Old Joe is hunting down a young boy named Cid (Pierce Gagnon), who has abnormally strong telekinetic powers and will eventually grow up to become a merciless supervillain in the future known as “The Rainmaker.”
Looper is available to stream on Netflix and Hulu.
Brightburn (2019)
Brightburn is a superhero horror movie that embraces the concept of “what if Superman was evil?” When Tori (Elizabeth Banks) and Kyle Breyer (David Denman) find an infant inside a mysterious space shuttle that crashed on their farm, they adopt him and raise him as their own son. They hide the shuttle inside one of their barns and all seems well until 12 years later, when Brandon (Jackson A. Dunn) begins to sleepwalk and exhibit strange powers.
Super strong and fast, Brandon also shows he has laser vision, the ability to fly, and is bulletproof. The big difference between him and Clark Kent, however, is that he wants to take over the world, and he has absolutely no love for humanity. After mercilessly slaughtering everybody he knows, Brandon is seen during the end credits, attacking cities all over the world. He may have Superman-like abilities, but his behavior places him more in Omniman (Invincible) or Homelander (The Boys) territory.
This movie is available to rent on-demand on Amazon Prime, Google Play, and iTunes.
The major concept that links these last two movies to Firestarter is possibly the scariest. It is the prevalent fear of what someone with supernatural powers can become if there are no systems in place to keep them in check. In Firestarter, Dr. Wanless (Kurtwood Smith), the man who oversaw the Lot 6 experiments, fears that Charlie could potentially create a nuclear explosion that destroys the planet using only her mind.
While the classic “nature vs. nurture” debate plays a large role in both Looper and Brightburn, we can see in the Firestarter trailer that Charlie admits to her father, Andy (Zac Efron), that she doesn’t “want to hurt anyone… but it kinda feels good.”
Coming out on Friday the 13th of May, Firestarter will be setting theaters ablaze. It will also be available to stream the same day on Peacock+.