Spontaneous Combustion (1990)

Spontaneous Combustion (1990) * 1/2 (out of 4)Sam (Brad Dourif) is a man who realizes that there's something not quite right with him but he's in for a shock when he realizes that he has the power to set things on fire. It turns out that his parents were involved in a government research project and they passed their contamination down to him.Tobe Hooper was ending an interesting period of his career. After the massive success of POLTERGEIST he found himself not really getting the type of projects that you'd expect. He ended up at Cannon and turned out LIFEFORCE, THE Texas CHAINSAW MASSACRE 2 and INVADERS FROM MARS. All three films were critical and commercial flops so the director had to find work elsewhere and this is that project. Sadly, this here is a pretty bland and boring movie that comes off more of a wannabe FIRESTARTER than anything else.There are all sorts of problems with this movie but the biggest for me was its structure. The story is centered on Sam yet for some reason his character really doesn't enter the picture until after the twenty-minute mark. The opening of the movie deals with the parents and to be quite honest this stuff was boring and it went nowhere. It certainly got the film off on the wrong track and I'd argue that it really messed with the flow of the picture. Things got marginally better once Sam's character takes over but even here there are long periods where nothing of interest happens.Dourif manages to turn in a very good performance in the lead and it's really a shame that he didn't have more to work with. His character was certainly an interesting one and so many things could have been done with him but the screenplay instead throws in a mad doctor sub-plot that just really doesn't go anywhere. For what it's worth, even the special effects aren't all that memorable.

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.

It's often said that Tobe Hooper just struck lucky with his grisly 1974 horror film 'The Texas Chain Saw Massacre' and every time I see another Hooper film - that view is only reinforced. It would seem that Hooper wanted to make his own version of films such as Scanners and Firestarter in 1990 and so we end up with Spontaneous Combustion; a film with a couple of good ideas and a whole load more that are borrowed from other films. Put it all together and you get a messy, boring film that most people would do well to miss! The film leads the audience to believe that it might be half decent initially with an intriguing back story that focuses on some experiments carried out on two young people in the fifties. The couple have a child and shortly thereafter burn to death as a result of the experiments done on them. Fast forward some years and the baby is now an adult named Sam; but naturally he's not a normal person and soon finds when it's discovered that he has the ability to set things on fire at will.The film stars Brad Dourif, who must have seemed like a good casting choice given his success with Child's Play two years earlier; but actually was an uninspired decision as the central performance is really terrible; and not helped by the terrible supporting performances. The turgid direction and dull script also don't do the film many favours and the trend of lacking in favours is continued by the special effects, which are very unrealistic and have nothing on the films that this one is ripping off; all of which were made some years earlier. The plot is really slow and it's almost an hour before anything of note happens, and I didn't care for it even then. It soon becomes obvious which direction the film will go in and it all boils down to the sort of tedious ending you would expect. The final confrontation is a big disappointment and nothing is really explained during the film. Not that any revelation would have been interesting anyway. Overall, this is a rubbish film and another reason why Tobe Hooper is a long way from being a great horror director. See Firestarter again instead.

I bought this movie in 3-Disc Tobe Hooper Collection. It came with SC, Eaten Alive and the documentary The American Nightmare. I watched Eaten Alive a few weeks ago and liked it, though i thought it could have been better. And last night I watched Spontaneous Combustion.And what I don't understand...Is such a low rating here on IMDb! I mean, this movie is no Texas Chainsaw Massacre but hell, it's not bad! I enjoyed it quite a lot, really. Brad Dourif truly is a good actor, and creates a character that is likable from the word go. The plot twists and turns, and true, is hard to follow but it's worth being confused as bit just to be wowed by the great special effects and curious happenings occurring around the human firecracker Sam Kramer.Overall, not Tobe Hooper's best, but it is very far from his worst, and it's certainly worth a look.