Spontaneous Combustion (1990)

First entry in this little blog of mine, and I chose to do Spontaneous Combustion?  Why not, I have very eclectic tastes and this was a first time watch for me.

First off, I can't believe I hadn't seen this movie ever.  This is pure B-Movie territory, low budget, and it's bad.  Directed by Tobe Hooper, of Texas Chainsaw fame, and of course his biggest hit, Poltergeist.  But Tobe has had many duds in his career, yet Tobe does have the knack of making a movie that still is entertaining even when it's awful.  Spontaneous Combustion is just nuts, and it has a very lean run time so it moves at a very brisk pace, which all helps keep this movie from boring a person.  Something crazy is always about to happen it seems, and it does feel extremely random, but that to me is part of it's charm.

Oh no my mannequin hands!

Nuclear testing leads to the birth of a boy with special powers, watch as he causes everything around him to burn!  The movie is not so much about spontaneous combustion really, it's really about pyrokinesis, which was also covered in the classic Firestarter.  Science gone wrong has given a young man power and he has to struggle to control it, all while dealing with shadowy government conspiracy types.  The movie plays off partially on the fears of the nuclear age but really it's just background fluff to tell a sci fi horror thriller with tons of exploding body parts and setting people on fire!  And wow is there FIRE!

Yes that's John Landis, and he's breathing fire. 

Is this movie supposed to be funny?  Have a feeling some of it was played kinda tongue in cheek.  Fire erupts from everything in this movie, often with laughable special effects, but at times the movie does impress.  People have fire randomly coming out of them, explosions, and really not a whole lot of spontaneous combustion going on outside maybe the first two deaths of the film.  The budget on this film is tiny, everything about it screams cheap, yet it still somehow tosses out some impressive gore as body parts rupture, spark, and blast jets of fire out.  It's so cheesy, that it's fun.  Obviously don't go into this expecting anything but pure bad science b-movie as you witness an atomic man melting down!  And also a highlight, the star of the movie is played by Brad Dourif who is best known for playing the popular killer doll Chucky.  Can't help but grin when Dourif get's excited on screen as all you can hear is that Chucky voice.

He's got the touch!

This movie does what many bad films fail to do, and that is to at least keep you engaged... even if you're laughing at it.  The worst thing a bad movie can do, is be boring.  Huge gaps of nothing going on, awful dialogue, or just pointless scenes that go nowhere, all just make a bad movie into something a person struggles with.  Spontaneous Combustion at least shows us how pacing can really do wonders for a film, and I wouldn't be surprised if this film was saved in the editing room.  Well, I don't think anything actually saved this flop really, but still to me I got a kick out of this piece of crap.