Andy McGee (David Keith) and Vicky Tomlonson (Heather Lockyear) were college students participating in an experiment. They were given a low-grade hallucinogen called LOT-6. Most of the students involved had terrible side-effects, but Vicky and Andy developed telepathic abilities. Vicky can read minds, and Andy can control the behaviour of others, though he experiences nosebleeds. They married later and have an eight-year-old daughter named Charlene or Charlie (Drew Barrymore) who has pyrokinetic abilities and can see the future.
Andy came home one day to find Vicky murdered and Charlie missing. It seems Vicky was tortured before being killed. Andy believes this was done by the Department of Scientific Intelligence or “The Shop,” which was the group responsible for the parents’ experiments in the first place. He thinks they are looking for a way to weaponize Charlie’s powers. Andy finds Charlie and rescues her by blinding the agents, and they go on the run.
A farmer named Irv Manders (Art Carney) and his wife Norma (Louise Fletcher) hide the pair, when Andy tells them the truth. When the Shop arrives, Charlie quickly finishes off the agents. They go on the run again, but Andy’s power was weakened. They hide in a secluded cabin and intend to go public with their story. But the head of the Shop, Captain James Hollister (Martin Sheen) sends an assassin named John Rainbird (George C. Scott) to capture them
To protect themselves, Andy writes letters to major newspapers, which reveal their location. They are captured and kept isolated from each other. Andy is medicated and tested and given drugs that decrease his powers. Rainbird pretends to be a friend to Charlie, calling himself John, to encourage her to submit to their tests.
Charlie’s powers increase. She asks to see her father. Andy only pretends to be taking the drugs and his powers return. Hollister drops his guard, and Andy uses his power to get information from Hollister. He slips Charlie a note and she tells Rainbird about the escape plans. Rainbird hides in the barn to kill Andy and then Charlie. Charlie enters the barn first and he tells her to climb the ladder to him.
But Andy enters and Charlie runs to him. She is angry to learn that her “friend” John is their enemy. Andy orders the mind-controlled Hollister to shoot Rainbird, but Rainbird kills Hollister and then Andy uses his powers to make Rainbird jump to the ground, breaking his leg. Rainbird shoots Andy and fires at Charlie but she engulfs Rainbird in flames. Dying, Andy asks her to bring the facility down. A team arrives and she kills them one by one in horrific fashion, destroys every building, then hitchhikes back to the Manders’ farm and prepares to tell her story to the world.
During filming of The Thing, Universal Studios offered John Carpenter a chance to direct Firestarter and Carpenter hired Bill Phillips to write another version of the Stephen King story with Richard Dreyfuss as Andy. But The Thing made less money than hoped, Universal replaced Carpenter with Mark Lester and Shirley Mann wrote a screenplay closer to the novel. The film was produced by Dino De Laurentiis, the first to be shot at his new studio in North Carolina.
Rotten Tomatoes gave the result 38%. Roger Ebert called it boring; Stephen King hated it and called it flavourless. But a remake was made in 2017. The original version is now considered a good adaptation. This tends to happen with Stephen King stories—everybody dumps on them and then they become classics. Drew Barrymore holds her own amid the mayhem and only seems in over her head now and then, but this was only her second film after E.T., and nobody gets performances from children like Steven Spielberg. We care about her and only finally fear her—kind of the opposite of most monsters. The climax is spectacular, largely due to the special effects of Mike Wood. There are several great actors involved, which helps. I should think a young child would be intimidated to act one-on-one with George C. Scott, but Drew carries it off.