History YMMV / Firestarter

* ValuesResonance: Orville Jamieson would seem like a scathing TakeThat at "incel" culture, if he didn't predate it by decades.

* TheWoobie: Charlie is just a 6-year-old who happens to have [[PlayingWithFire powerful pyrokenesis]]. She gets kidnapped along with her dad and basically made a slave by The Shop, even though she doesn't want to hurt anyone. Even worse, [[spoiler: her dad dies right in-front of her at the end.]] While she ends up incinerating quite a few people, it was all in self-defense, and she really [[IJustWantToBeNormal just wants to be left alone and allowed to live like a normal little girl.]]

* SugarWiki/AwesomeMusic: Much of the soundtrack, especially the opening and closing credits, was quite a few people's introduction to Music/TangerineDream. The remake's [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u33OuQv2g-c score]] also qualifies, courtesy of none other than Creator/JohnCarpenter.

* SugarWiki/AwesomeMusic: Much of the soundtrack, especially the opening and closing credits, was quite a few people's introduction to Music/TangerineDream.

** When Charlie shows that can correctly uses her powers in front of The Shop, Hollister drops all traces of professionalism, running around excitedly shouting about how they have undeniable proof that they have someone with powers that can be replicated anytime they want for almost a minute. If his happiness wasn't based on doing horrible things to children you'd be happy for him too.

** David Keith running from The Shop in the movie is very amusing if you've seen the [[{{Film/Carrie2002}} 2002 remake of]] ''{{Literature/Carrie}}'' - this time ''he's'' the one tracking an ExtraordinarilyEmpoweredGirl.

** In the book, [[spoiler:Dr. Pynchot's echo eventually causes him to dress in women's underwear and obsess on how his garbage disposal resembles female genitalia. He ultimately decides to clean it by hand. While it's running.]]

*** The novel isn't as traumatic with only one person going into cardiac arrest and one person clawing his eyes out but between Shop agents masquerading as grad assistants to test the participants, Andy and Vicky's telepathic conversations, and the actual assistants gaslighting them into thinking it was AllJustADream, it's a ''very'' unnerving experience. No wonder it haunts Andy and Vicky for the rest of their lives with the latter utterly terrified to the point where she refused to even talk about it if she could help it.

*** The novel isn't as traumatic with only one person going into cardiac arrest and one person clawing his eyes out but between Shop agents masquerading as grad assistants to test the participants, Andy and Vicky's telepathic conversations, and the actual {{GAs}} gaslighting them into thinking it was AllJustADream, it's a ''very'' unnerving experience. No wonder it haunts Andy and Vicky for the rest of their lives with the latter utterly terrified to the point where she refused to even talk about it if she could help it.

*** The novel isn't as traumatic with only one person going into cardiac arrest and one person clawing his eyes out but between Shop agents masquerading as grad assistants to test the participants, Andy and Vicky's telepathic conversations, and the actual GAs gaslighting them into thinking it was AllJustADream, it's a ''very'' unnerving experience. No wonder it haunts Andy and Vicky for the rest of their lives with the latter utterly terrified to the point where she refused to even talk about it if she could help it.

* SugarWiki/MomentOfAwesome: When Charlie ''single-handedly'' sends the sadistic army of The Shop literally burning and screaming all the way to Hell where they belong. This, combined with a TearJerker , being [[spoiler: Andy's last words after Rainbird shoots him in the head]].

* {{Narm}}: In the movie there's Andy's incredibly silly gesture of putting his hands on his forehead whenever he uses his powers. In the book, he doesn't have to do anything, which is why he's able to sneakily use them on government officials when he's careful.

* HarsherInHindsight: A sexist murderer has the initials OJ and even insists on nicknaming himself "Juice," at a time when OJ Simpson was still a highly popular football player and actor with his murder scandal still more than a decade away.

* {{Shoutout}}: A subtle one: Charlie's full name is Charlene Roberta [=McGee=]. Her father calls her Bobbi, a short version of her middle name, as an alias, making her full name [[Music/JanisJoplin "Bobbi [=McGee=]"]]. Joplin died in 1970, shortly before Charlie was born. It's hard to imagine that Andy (or King, a shameless rock-and-roller) would not have had this in mind.
* ValuesResonance: Orville Jamieson would seem like a scathing TakeThat at "incel" culture, if he didn't predate it by decades.

* CrowningMusicOfAwesome: Much of the soundtrack, especially the opening and closing credits, was quite a few people's introduction to Music/TangerineDream.
* CrowningMomentOfAwesome: When Charlie ''single-handedly'' sends the sadistic army of The Shop literally burning and screaming all the way to Hell where they belong. This, combined with a TearJerker , being [[spoiler: Andy's last words after Rainbird shoots him in the head]].
-->It's a war. Make them know they've been in a war. [...] Make it so they can never do anything like this again. Burn it down, Charlie. Burn it all down.
* CrowningMomentOfFunny:

--> Wood chips. They should have given me something hard.

* FridgeBrilliance: As pointed out under NoControlGroup and BlatantLies, there wasn't much point of using a placebo if the researchers were going to inform their test subjects what the experimental drug was supposed to do. However, given that they told the subjects it was a ''hallucinogen'', the Shop's experts may have expected the drug to cause ''mild and temporary'' manifestations of psychic ability, which they wouldn't want the subjects reporting to anyone after the treatment wore off. So telling them about the placebo was just an excuse to warn them that many of them would be hallucinating shortly, thus predisposing the volunteers to disbelieve any potential weirdness they'd witness during the drug trial.

--> Burn it all down, Charlie.

* HilariousInHindsight: David Keith running from The Shop in the movie is very amusing if you've seen the [[{{Film/Carrie2002}} 2002 remake of]] ''{{Literature/Carrie}}'' - this time ''he's'' the one tracking an ExtraordinarilyEmpoweredGirl.