Movies That Suck: Spontaneous Combustion (1990)

It's time to rag on Tobe Hooper again and this time, we have a movie that I first heard about in a companion book to horror films that was one in a series (in other words, there were also similar companions to sci-fi movies, comic book movies, comedies, etc.). The book went through the horror films that the author considered the most influential and for each film, had a section about the director's career. It was in the section on Tobe Hooper during the chapter about The Texas Chainsaw Massacre that I first became aware of many movies by Hooper that I'd never heard of, including Spontaneous Combustion. It popped up again during a 2009 episode of a horror podcast where the main topic was Hooper's career and while they acknowledged that a good 95% of his films are bad, they particularly hated on this one. That same year, during James Rolfe's (the Angry Video Game Nerd) annual October horror movie review marathon, Cinemassacre's Monster Madness, he talked about Spontaneous Combustion and showed some clips from it and, while he said that the film itself was mediocre and that Brad Dourif's performance was the only real good thing about it, it looked cool judging from the footage shown, so I decided to see the movie for myself. By the time I finally did get around to seeing it in the late summer of 2011, I was actually kind of looking forward to it. I'd already seen Hooper's The Mangler by that point and, despite that same podcast ranting on it and saying it was also terrible, I thought it was an entertaining, if really silly, little horror flick, so I figured, "Well, then, Spontaneous Combustion can't be that bad." Little did I know, especially since I hadn't experienced Hooper's really awful films by that point. In fact, I got a taste of how bad he can really be when I watched another of his movies before Spontaneous Combustion and guess which one it was? Eaten Alive. (If you read my review of it, you know how much I "loved" that movie.) So at this point, I was already annoyed at Hooper, but it was Spontaneous Combustion that firmly put him on my crap list of directors. I don't know how this guy manages to continuously take ideas that could make for interesting and entertaining movies and turn them into complete crap but he did it again here. This is one of the most confusing, boring, and illogical horror movies I have ever seen. I don't know which is worse, this or Eaten Alive, but regardless, it's another testament to Hooper's lack of real talent.

In 1955, a young married couple take part in a government experiment in the Nevada desert where they are put in a bunker which is then exposed to a nuclear explosion. Beforehand, they're given a serum meant to shield them from the radiation and it seems to be successful. Nine months later, the two of them have a child but, soon after the baby is born, his parents inexplicably burst into flames and burn to ashes, with the government becoming determined to know what caused this case of spontaneous human combustion. Fast forward to present day where the child, Sam, is now a grown man living in Arizona and has had a fairly normal life, save for a constant fever and really bad migraines. However, on his thirty-fourth birthday (or thirty-fifth depending on whether, by "present day," they mean 1989, the year the movie was filmed, or 1990, when it was released), flames begin to inexplicably burst out of different parts of his body and anybody he becomes enraged at dies a fiery death. It isn't long before he discovers the truth about his parents and that the government has actually been monitoring and controlling his entire life, prompting him to use his "gift" for revenge.

By this point, Tobe Hooper's Hollywood career was very far down into the toilet. He'd already had his disastrous three-picture deal with Cannon Films that resulted in Lifeforce, the 1986 remake of Invaders from Mars, and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 (all three of which are actually quite entertaining and, to me, are among the best films he ever made), which were huge bombs at the box-office. Since then, Hooper had mainly taken to television, directing episodes of shows like Amazing Stories, The Equalizer, and Freddy's Nightmares (he actually directed the pilot episode for the latter). In fact, Spontaneous Combustion was the first film he'd made since The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 in 1986, so it was sort of a comeback film, but, like its predecessors, it failed miserably at the box-office in February of 1990 and damaged Hooper's career even more so, to the point where he's directed very few theatrical movies since then. And, when I look at this film, I can't help but feel that it's plain to see he doesn't deserve any more chances from Hollywood. Before you say that maybe the script was the problem, not Hooper's directing, he had a hand in writing the thing as well. He may have co-wrote the screenplay with Howard Goldberg but he also came up with the story, so I think it's fair to say that we can blame this movie's failure almost entirely on him.

What really sucks about this movie is that it's a horrible flick that also happens to give one of my favorite actors, Brad Dourif, a rare leading role, and his performance makes me sad that he couldn't be the lead in a better movie because he gives it his all. For once, he actually gets to play a character who isn't a complete psycho. He begins the character of Sam as a fairly normal guy who has strange health problems, has to put up with his ex-wife while he courts a new lover, and deal with several doctors who seem more interested in his health than most doctors would or should be. He's a pretty decent, likable guy despite all of this crap but, as the movie goes on and Sam discovers everything about his past, Dourif amps up the rage and intensity. I won't say he becomes an out-and-out villain, (although, he does wantonly kill an innocent police officer at one point, even screaming, "Burn, goddamn you!", which was really excessive and unncessary), but he does become intent on getting revenge on all those who have made him what he is, which is understandable. I usually enjoy watching Dourif go off the deep end and start screaming in his Chucky voice but, by the end of this movie, I so didn't care and was just wishing that it would end. You have know idea how much it pains me to say that but, even an actor as good as Dourif couldn't save this movie from becoming the colossal mess that it is.

Cynthia Bain plays Sam's girlfriend, Lisa, and she's also pretty good, truly caring about Sam and wanting to help him. Little does she know, however, that she's actually been a pawn in the conspiracy to observe and control him. It was arranged that she would get a job where she would meet Sam, she was told by a doctor that she trusted to give Sam some pills, not knowing what they were, and, near the end of the film, it's revealed that she's a product of the same experiment and also has spontaneous combustion abilities, with the whole goal having been for the two of them to get together and produce a baby with the same abilities. Only thing I don't get, though, is how come she never questioned why they wanted her to do all this stuff. She seems to know about Sam's abilities and the fact that she has them too, so why is she so shocked when the government apparently turns on him? Actually, what I just said comes across as muddled. At one point, she even says that the doctor told her to give Sam these pills and she doesn't seem to know what they were for at that point but later, she appears to know perfectly well about Sam's abilities. So how far in on it is she? Maybe I missed something or the screenplay is so poorly written that it didn't come across well but, either way, the character of Lisa, as well-played as she is, doesn't make sense in the long run.

I also don't get the motivation behind the two people behind the conspiracy, Dr. Marsh (Jon Cypher) and Lew Orlander (William Prince). Orlander is the guy who has raised Sam all his life, to the point where he feels that he's his real father since you find out that he offered Sam's biological father a lot of money to allow him to be born (was he going to abort the kid?), and is quite proud of his creation, calling Sam America's nuclear man. So, did Orlander want to see Sam grow up so he could become a military weapon or did he just want to see the project come to fruition? I say that because Dr. Marsh, a guy who's known Sam ever since his college days, was his actual doctor for a while, and still pesters Sam about his health, starts trying to inject Sam (and later, Lisa) with a glowing serum that I guess could be deadly. Maybe I was just so befuddled and bored by the movie that I missed some important plot-points but the very fact that I missed them isn't a sign of good filmmaking to me.

One character who I did like was Melinda Dillon as Nina, a German (I think she was supposed to be German) scientific advisor who knew Sam's parents and was not happy at all about what the government did to them. She comes back into Sam's life when she hears a call of his on a psychic hotline and discovers who he is. Afterward, he visits her house and she lets him know everything about his parents. She's a sympathetic character overall but I have to bring up one little detail: the military was kind of right that, even though she didn't like the result the serum had on Sam's parents, she did let them go ahead with it. Plus,iIt was an experiment with radiation, so I don't think it should have been that much of a shock that it was going to have nasty side-effects. I also smirked at how, when Sam's parents burst into flames, she's standing there holding baby Sam (or David, as his name was originally) and has no reaction other than putting her hand over her mouth. Two people just exploded in front of you, lady! I think you should be a bit more shocked than that.

By the way, Sam's ex-wife Rachel (Dey Young), isn't in the movie that much but she does come across as a bit of a bitch. One thing that's weird, though, is she shows up at the end of the movie after Lisa has accidentally killed Dr. Marsh with her fire power and when she starts to shoot fire out of her arm, Rachel actually tries to kill her with a fire extinguisher. Since she's often with Orlander, I'm guessing she does know the truth about both Sam and Lisa but that just comes out of nowhere, with no explanation as to why she's doing that. Did Dr. Marsh and Orlander tell her to kill Lisa? I'll buy that explanation but you got to give it to me first (at least, I don't think they explained it). The last actor I have to mention is director John Landis' small role as a technician at the office of the psychic hotline that Sam calls. He dies a pretty insane fiery death when he refuses to connect Sam to the psychic and Sam's anger causes him to burst into flames. Apparently, James Rolfe brought this up to Landis when he met him at a convention and he didn't seem too happy about it (I wouldn't be too happy about being reminded of my part in such a bad movie, either).

I'm sorry if, during those character discussions, I didn't seem to remember a lot about their importance to the plot but this movie is so disjointed and confusing that you're lucky I'm giving you a review of it at all. This story did not need to be so complicated. Just make a movie about a guy who discovers that he has this ability due to a government experiment and he goes after them for turning him into this freak. Don't make it where there are all these conspiracies around it and it's hard to discern whether or not the government intends to use him as a weapon (again, I think that they were intending to do so, but I'm not sure). Plus, like a lot of Hooper's movies, the pace here just sucks. It's only a little over 90 minutes long but it feels like three hours because it's so confusing and jumbled.

In fact, the very science of this experiment doesn't make a lot of sense. I know, I'm talking about dicey science in a movie about a man who can make people explode, but let's think about this. This guy was created by an experiment whose effects were passed down to him by his parents, right? So, it should be biological, like something that David Cronenberg would deal with. But here's what I don't get: how can Sam make people burst into flames just because he gets angry at them? His parents seemed to explode because of a chain reaction caused when his mother came into contact with some mercury from a thermometer and some got on his dad as well. Fine, but that never happens or comes into play again. Also, I figured that maybe the combustion happens after he touches a person which, while still not explaining how his rage causes them to explode, would at least make for a biological sort of connection to it. But, that's not the case. He never comes into contact with the technician that John Landis plays, possibly meaning that it's psychic as well as biological. Suddenly, it's like Firestarter and Sam is pyrokinetic? Hell, he must be psychic because there's one point where he's staring at a lit fireplace and has visions of his parents leading up to their deaths... something he couldn't possibly conjure up on his own because he either wasn't born or was only like a day old when that happened! And just to add even more to this insanity, not only can he cause people to explode when he's on the phone with them, no matter how far apart they are, and becomes enraged, but near the end of the film, he appears to enter the power lines in order to screw up a nuclear reactor that's going online. Now, he's become like Horace Pinker in Shocker and can travel through electricity? This movie just cannot make up its mind when it comes to the extent and exact nature of Sam's abilities. In addition, Sam has a bizarre, burn-like birthmark of his right hand which is never explained and, therefore, completely pointless, and yhere's also constant ramblings throughout about a nuclear plant that's going to go online midnight that night, which I don't think ever comea into play at all in the actual plot other than being something for Sam to screw up. Maybe the government had an agenda behind it that I missed? I don't know and, quite frankly, I don't care.

It also doesn't help that the makeup and optical effects, which are obviously a key component to the movie, are laughably bad and dated. The opticals used whenever somebody bursts into flame in particular are full of painfully bad matting work and superimposition and the concepts behind them are often silly because some of the victims don't just burst into flames. John Landis' technician actually shoots fire out of his mouth before exploding and during a moment when Sam is talking to Lisa over the phone, his rage explodes and, not only does fire come out of the phone, but a flaming hand appears briefly in front of her. The heck was that?! That hand shows up again, this time in electrical form, at the end when Sam, right before dying in an anticlimactic electric explosion, takes away Lisa's "flames." Give me a break. That's what I meant when I said that the concept is confused and all over the place. The makeup effects by Steve Neill (who never worked in makeup effects again after this movie) are also really bad for the most part. They're horribly lit and you can tell that the various body parts that are catching on fire are made of foam rubber or that the burning bodies are more than likely dummies. There are some that look nice and the burn makeup on Sam at the end is pretty good but, other than that, the effects are just really horribly executed all-around.

There are also instances where the movie's art department kind of sucks too. One particularly cringe-inducing moment is in the opening 1955 segment that's supposed to take place out in the desert and it's clearly a badly constructed set in front of either a matte shot or a backdrop. That really made me go, "Ooh, man," when I first saw it. The only other bit of really bad production design is something that isn't the designer's fault but is just so dated that I have to mention it, which is this really tacky phone with neon purplish-pink light in it that Lisa has. Again, it's not the art department or Hooper's fault because I'm sure that those were probablu popular at the time but, man, that looks dated!

Finally, there's the music score by Graeme Revell, who, again, proves that, nine times out of ten, he can't make a music score that's anything more than okay. The music over the opening credit sequence (which is decent, I will admit) and the sort of main theme with vocalizing far in the background is okay but not exactly memorable, and I don't remember any of the other tunes except the bit over the ending credits, which I felt was overly bombastic. Other than that, I don't know how Revell keeps getting work because his music is just generic and unmemorable.

Spontaneous Combustion is a huge turd of a movie. It's confusing, horribly paced, can't decide what kind of movie it wants to be, is terribly dated in many respects, including the effects, and, despite some good performances, will leave you thinking, "What did I just watch?" Between this and my Eaten Alive review, I know it seems like I have it out for Tobe Hooper, and I also know I'm probably pissing off a lot of his fans, but the bottom-line is that he's made some really bad movies and, to me, this is by far one of the worst, if not the worst. (There's someone who feels that it's Hooper's last good movie, which I don't get at all, but to each his own) If you're a fan of Hooper and I've made you mad, I'm sorry. This is just my opinion, so take it for what you will, but to me, Spontaneous Combustion is another strike against him.