Spontaneous Combustion (1990)

… aka: Fire Syndrome
… aka: I figli del fuoco (The Fire Children)
… aka: Nevada eksperimentet (Nevada Experiment)
… aka: Polttava kuolema (Burning Death)

Directed by:
Tobe Hooper

I scoured the internet looking for interviews with Hooper where he addresses this particular film and came up empty handed in my search. Seems like nearly everyone just wants to talk in great length about his masterpiece The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974). I wonder if he's sick of talking about that movie and answering the same questions over and over again forty years later. Other journalists will touch on some of his other, better-known films. You know, like his Spielberg-produced Hollywood breakthrough Poltergeist (1982), which remains his highest-grossing film to date, and his less successful work with Cannon Picture on the Texas Chainsaw sequel and the big-budget bombs Lifeforce (1985) and Invaders from Mars (1986), but tend to stop around that point in time as if he didn't make anything afterward. If I was ever given a chance to interview him I'd personally be picking his brain about movies like this (which bears the telltale signs of being a very troubled production) and some of the odd ones he made overseas soon after like Night Terrors (1993) and The Mangler (1995). Spontaneous Combustion was his first theatrical feature after his disastrous three-picture stint with Cannon / Golan-Globus four years earlier. Like the Cannon films, this one also had a fairly healthy budget and was a major flop. On a budget of 5.5 million dollars, it grossed just 50 thousand in its limited run. Box Office Mojo lists 226 theatrical releases for 1990 and this one ranks #221 for the year.

Things begin in 1955 at the “Hydrogen Bomb Testing Site” in the Nevada Desert. Brian Bell (Brian Bremer) convinces his wife Peggy (Stacy Edwards) to take part in a military experiment called “Project Samson;” which promises to “take the anxiety out of the Atomic Age!” While hiding down in a bunker 20 feet underground and allowing the military to drop an A-bomb directly on top of them may not sound like a wise choice, it certainly pays well and all they really have to do is strap themselves down to a seat and take an experimental new drug to make them immune from the radioactive fallout. Things seem to go off without a hitch... at least at first. Brian and Peggy pass all of their tests, are labeled “America's First Nuclear Family,” become national heroes for their courage and are given a wad of cash and put up in a nice new home in Phoenix. 

Nine months later, Peggy gives birth to a baby boy they name David. Though he has a slightly above-average body temperature and a strange circular birthmark on his hand, otherwise he gets a clean bill of health from the doctors. Brian and Peggy are elated... that is until both of them suddenly go up in flames. The baby is then handed off to project leader Lew Orlander (William Prince) to raise as his own so he can keep a close eye on him and perhaps cultivate his potential. Lew changes the boy's name to Sam Kramer, tells him his real parents drowned and naturally doesn't tell him anything in regards to his real parents or past.

Thirty-five years later in Trinidad Beach, California we meet the now-grown Sam / David (Brad Dourif), who's a college professor and has managed to ingratiate himself into society with no apparent issues thus far. However, that's all about to change and he'll have worse things to worry about than bombing his audition for the upcoming Shakespeare festival. Sam's recently started suffering from intense migraines to go along with a fever-like body temperature he's had his whole life. The birthmark on his hand keeps growing and he's soon having visions of his dead parents and recollecting things about his past he'd have no way of knowing. Coinciding with all of that, people in the area, namely those who have somehow crossed or angered Sam, have mysteriously burned to death. Though the press have written several of the incidents off as the deceased accidentally catching themselves on fire from smoking in bed, the latest victim somehow managed to catch fire while taking a shower; which forced them to look into the concept of spontaneous combustion.

It's soon made clear to both Sam and his supportive new girlfriend Lisa (Cynthia Bain) that he's the one actually causing the deaths after a woman he gets into a fight with, an inept doctor and a rude, Twinkie-eating radio technician (played by John Landis in a silly cameo) all go up in flames after angering Sam. A hole forms on his arm that starts spewing blood and fire and it can't even be put out with water, which just acts as a fuel of sorts to keep the flames going. And if you think dealing with common everyday assholes may make one angry, just wait until Sam finds out that his adoptive father (who's now the chief adviser to the board of director's at a power plant that's reopening in town), his ex-wife (Dey Young), the woman he now loves, his new doctor (Jon Cypher), who strangely whips out a Geiger Counter during an examination, and others are not only keeping things from him but may also be conspiring against him.

While this starts out fairly well with the 1950s segment, it only gets progressively worse from there. The plot is unfocused and meandering, there's so much stuffed in here that pretty much every plot thread ends up under-baked or just gets tossed to the side altogether, the John Dykstra special effects are highly variable (ranging from excellent to awful) and everything leads up to a truly terrible finale that's unsatisfying, anticlimactic and utterly senseless. What gives with the birthmark? What gives with Sam briefly acquiring clairvoyant abilities and being able to see into not only his past but other (dead!) people's lives? What gives with the syringe of glowing green goop a mad doctor / assassin wants to inject Sam and Lisa with? What gives with Sam being able to cause people to spontaneously burst into flames at will and from afar yet not using these powers on the people he knows mean to do him harm? The piss poor writing / plot development does provide the occasional unintended laugh and "WTF just happened?!" moment, so this has that much going for it.

I've always loved Dourif. He's a great actor who usually gives it his all, as he does in this film, but even he can't do much when the dialogue is this bad. Some clunkers include Lisa reassuring Sam not to worry because spontaneous human combustion “...happens all the time!” and one of the military men noting the irony of the atomic baby's birthday: “Well it's August 6th... Today's the 10th anniversary of the day we dropped the bomb on Hiroshima. That's pretty funny, isn't it?” The supporting cast also includes Melinda Dillon, Dale Dye and former Chicago Bears linebacker Dick Butkus as members of the 1950s military / science team, Michael Keys Hall, Dick Warlock and one-eyed House of Wax director André De Toth in an uncredited cameo. George “Buck” Flower provides the voice of a radio preacher and Hooper himself can be seen smoking in the boy's room.

★1/2

Tiyanak (1988)

... aka: Goblin
... aka: Monster Baby

Directed by:
Peque Gallaga
Lorenzo A. 'Lore' Reyes

While passing through the jungle, Jopet (Crispin 'Pen' Medina) and his pregnant wife Nelia (Betty Mae Piccio) hear the sound of a baby crying. She goes to investigate, finds an adorable little baby wrapped up in leaves and picks it up, only for the infant to spring to life and go all It's Alive on her. Near where the woman was killed live the well-to-do Marsos family. Virginal daughter Christie (Lotlot De Leon), who's been away at college, decides to come back home for a visit so she can introduce everyone to her medical student boyfriend Jojo (Ramon Christopher). Upon arrival, Christie is disheartened to find that her sister Julie (Janice de Belen) is severely depressed after having had several miscarriages, including a traumatic recent one during the final trimester. Julie's been so shaken up by what she's been through recently, plus the financial burden medicine and frequent doctor's visits are putting on her and her husband Mars (Rudolf Yaptinchay), that she has a screaming nervous breakdown by simply recounting it. Being the good sister she is, Christie is forced to slap the shit out of her to calm her down and then tells her to “Trust in God.” Well, God's line's apparently busy, so someone else ends up answering her call.

After hearing several neighborhood boys talking about monsters said to be lurking in the woods, little sister Monica (Carmina Villaroel) consults her husky-voiced, deeply religious grandmother (Mary Walter, from KILL BARBARA WITH PANIC), who lays out the mythology of the creatures for us. Back when God and Satan were warring for power, three different groups formed: Those who followed God and became angels and saints, those who rebelled and followed Satan and became demons and those who were “two-faced” and refused to take a side. Those in the latter category waited out the revolution until Satan and followers were banished to hell but, by then, it was too late. Their doubt in either side trapped them on Earth, where they are cursed to live as immortal creatures. These beings took the shape of “manananggal” (a bloodsucking, winged witch), “aswang” (a shapeshifter that takes many forms, including that of a werewolf) and “tiyanak” (a vampire-like monster that imitates a child or baby in order to ensnare prey). Because these creatures are doomed to live on Earth forever, they're filled with bitterness and envy and often like to take it all out on any humans they come across.

While outside getting romantic with some guava, Christie and Jojo hear a baby crying and find an abandoned infant in the shed. They bring it back home, where Julie stakes her claim and believes it to be a blessing from God to repay her for all of the babies she's lost. Granny, on the other hand, isn't having any of it (“Maligno! That baby is a devil. Kill it!”) Despite being older and wiser, her warnings are ignored when the man of the house caves in to his wife and allows her to keep it. They name the baby “Angelica” and problems start up right away, with it constantly fussing, cutting Monica's face (which causes a very nasty infection) and tossing an angel figurine onto the floor. After it attacks Monica, Granny attempts to kill it by smothering it and pushing its stroller down the stairs but the baby retaliates and kills her instead.

For some reason, most in the family refuse to believe the baby could be at fault. Christie is skeptical at first and, after the baby disappears, Mars and Julie think it's some kind of extortion / kidnapping scheme orchestrated by a gang of thugs who are actually Jopet and his buddies looking to get revenge on the monster. Having already been attacked once, Monica certainly knows better and teams up with two neighborhood kids: servant boy Niniko (Smokey Manaloto), who witnessed the first killing, and cop's son Aries (Chuckie Dreyfuss), who has access to guns. The three go to visit kindly backwoods medicine woman Telang Bayawak (Zorayda Sanchez), who reveals that the tiyanak hides when it's injured, can only be killed with fire and that, each time it transforms from human baby to monster, it leaves behind a layer of cloth-like skin, sort of like when a snake sheds. She instructs them to get the skin and bring it to her.

Christie finally becomes a believer herself when she rescues the baby from the thugs only to almost get killed herself after it slaughters a female doctor (Suzanne Gonzales) and a nurse at the hospital. Of course, the staff doesn't believe her story and dope her up, so baby Angelica returns home. The following day, the rest of the family go to church to get the baby baptized but it screams, cries, makes candles melt and turns holy water into blood. Jopet and his goons show up with guns; prompting Julie to run off with the baby. She ducks into a movie theater showing HOUSE (1986), falls asleep and little Angelica transforms into a monster and slaughters an annoying kid who won't stop disrupting the movie for the rest of the audience. (Hell, where was Angelica two weeks ago when I went to see The Witch in a cinema packed with teens?) The gang busts in, starts shooting innocent people and Jopet finally pops a cap in the baby's head before going crazy and being hauled off by police while the theater owner chews Julie out for not paying for a ticket and screams things like “I won't watch horror films anymore!” Hilarious! Things finally end up at the house, which the monster has been using as its safe haven all this time, for a fiery finish.

The directors have clearly seen the aforementioned IT'S ALIVE (1974) because this has many scenes clearly inspired by both it and its sequels. It's hampered a bit by poor editing choices that repeatedly cut away from the action and horror scenes to show other characters discussing matters somewhere else. However, none of that means this isn't a hell of a lot of fun! Despite a run time that exceeds 2 hours, things move along quite nicely and it's filled with fun moments, decent horror scenes (especially when the baby traps the leading lady in a storage closet) and even some fully intentional laughs. It's nicely shot, the cable-controlled demon baby design is surprisingly good and the cast is decent as well. Though Julie is annoying and JoJo is a douche bag, this makes up for it with a likable female lead, great supporting roles for Walter (who had been starring in similar films since 1927!!) and Sanchez, plus kid characters who are not only not annoying but actually smarter and more resilient than most of the adults. I'm now officially stoked to see more 80s Filipino horror if they're as much fun as this one.

Co-director Gallaga previously made the “Manananggal” segment in the anthology Shake, Rattle & Roll (1984) and went on to do the “Aswang” segment in Shake, Rattle & Roll II, which he co-directed with Reyes. The two directors also teamed up on a feature-length Aswang movie in 1992, a 1999 follow-up titled Sa piling ng aswang (“In the Presence of the Aswang”) and a 2014 remake of this one titled T'yanak. The 2011 documentary The Aswang Phenomenon features an interview with Gallaga about the vampire-creature legends; which are presented as fact to just about every young child in the Philippines.

★★★