Review: Spontaneous Combustion

Text © Richard Gary / Indie Horror Films, 2019
Images from the Internet

Spontaneous Combustion

Written and directed by Tobe Hooper
Cheezy Movies / Sunset Entertainment / MVD Entertainment
97 minutes, 1990 / 2018
www.cheezyflicks.com
www.mvdvisual.com

While it’s true his career had sort of petered out over the decades from the 1970s in the Millennium into shlock, there can be no denying that director Tobe Hooper (d. 2017) has had his moment to shine with the likes of big budget films such as Poltergiest (1982) and Invaders From Mars (1986), but what makes him part of the innovative pantheon of directors that fanboys/-girls like myself drool over is his early, seminal indie work, specifically the original The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974).

This film was released during his transitory period when he was beginning his slide to more television than film, his glory days mostly behind him. Sadly it shows in the production. Don’t get me wrong, this is a fun film with some definite WTF moments to keep the viewer on their toes, but yeah, in hindsight, you can almost see the decline coming.



Brad Dourif and Cynthia Bain

In a long prologue that can practically be construed as an entire Act I, we meet a couple in 1955 who are involved in a secret experiment having to do with nuclear test explosions. The end result is their son Sam (Brad Dourif, who has been the voice of devil doll Chucky in every Child’s Play franchise film to date), now 35 years old and a bit of a loner with anger issues. That being said, he does have an ex-wife, Rachel (Dey Young, who will forever be Kate Rambeau of 1979’s Rock ‘n’ Roll High School to this Ramones nerd), and a present girlfriend, the lovely Lisa (Cynthia Bain).

 

But something strange has been happening to our stringy haired hero: flames are shooting out of his arm, people are not-so spontaneously combusting, and Sam’s fears of people out to get him are starting to go beyond the mere paranoia phase. The tighter the noose gets, the more explosive Sam becomes.

One of the aspects of this power is that as seldom applied on other films is that as Sam uses it in his wake of vengeance, it also causes harm to him both physically and mentally as his body sears bit by bit. Of course, this leads to some nice effects that are both digital and practical. Before long, Sam is virtually unrecognizable as the skin begins to bake away. Feel the burn!



Dey Young

Along with the human monstrosity that is our beleaguered hero, the forces of science around him are out for blood. The film is as much about technology as it is about the callous effects on the human body. Atomic power plants and radiation are key (the Three Mile Island accident happened a decade before, in 1979), but this is most exemplified for its period by the use of the telephone, with a wonderful and huge see-through home phone owned by Lisa, to a scene with Sam on a payphone to a DJ at a call-in psychic radio show that seems to be right out of David Cronenberg’s Scanners (1981); this also leads to one of the best comic moments in the film, as well.

 

As did John Landis in An American Werewolf in London (1981), Hooper throws in some subtle wink-wink-nod-nod moments. Included here are that all the hearths have a raging fire going, even though the story takes place in August, and that the Ink Spots song “I Don’t Want to Set the World on Fire” plays on the soundtrack, among others.

What’s more noticeable, though, are the head scratchers. For example, Sam’s parents died when he was newly born, yet he seems to remember a song his mom used to sing to him. There are a number of plot holes like that, but I don’t want to give too much away, because if you’re like me, while that can be frustrating, on the other hand it also amuses me to make note of them.

Beyond the horror of atomic energy, electrical impulses and especially blow-torch level fires from body orifices and digits, this is also a decent spy thriller with both double and triple crosses, filled with lots of red herrings to throw the viewer of the scent. I mean, in some cases you’ll see it coming pretty early on, but in others, you may get a few surprises. A big surprise on this Blu-ray release is that the only extras are chapters and some trailers.

This is certainly not a brilliant film and can be quite silly in spots, this was a child of the VHS boom when all cards and videos were on the table in a market where there were video stores practically on every corner, with an audience that did not have 500 channels on which to choose.

Spontaneous Combustion is certainly a child of its times, and fortunately, there is a strong nostalgia for these cheesy films. Hell, the company that reissued this is called Cheezy Movies, fer cryin’ out loud. There certainly is a reason why there is a resurgence of the releases from this period, in the same way people look back at gratuitously goofy fun like Gilligan’s Island and Happy Days.