A thick slice of flame grilled cheese, Firestarter is a great Eighties B-movie.

The only problem is this story of a young girl who can start fires with the power of her mind being hunted and kidnapped by a shadowy research group was only ever intended to be a blockbusting A-picture.

Eighties mogul Dino De Laurentiis was so convinced Stephen King's doorstop novel would be a Carrie or The Shining sized smash he spent $3m on special effects alone and secured a top name cast including Drew Barrymore, hot off E.T as Charlie, the hot-tempered firestarter, two Oscar winning actors in George C. Scott and Louise (forever Nurse Ratched) Fletcher, and Martin Sheen, making his second King adaptation for De Laurentiis in as many years after The Dead Zone in 1983.

What Dino failed to do was hire a director who could mix onscreen fireworks with acting pyrotechnics, settling for Mark (Commando) L. Lester.

John Carpenter was originally slated to direct, but Universal removed him after The Thing lost money for them, so he went to Columbia and adapted another King book, Christine.

Writer Stanley Mann clearly battled hard to distil King's overcooked bestseller into a manageable screenplay, but left gaping plot holes such as Charlie's ESP that disappears and reappears as the plot demands, and government goons who spend too much time waiting to get torched rather than running away.

Yet, despite its faults (or because of them) any child of the eighties should have warm memories of Firestarter.

And in these post X-Files and Buffy times the irresistible story of a father with mind powers and his pyrokinetic daughter being tested on by an evil clandestine agency (known as The Shop no less) may be more appealing now than it when first released.

Audiences with a touch of the pyromaniac about them will get their money's worth as that $3m effects budget literally goes up in smoke, and explosions and fireballs, in the give-'em-what-they-want finale as Charlie turns the heat up on those evil Shop workers.

David Keith (then famous as Richard Gere's best mate in An Officer and a Gentlemen) offers a tortured turn as Charlie's dad, while Martin Sheen is solid support as the nefarious head of The Shop, and room is made for cameos from Heather Locklear and Antonio (Huggy Bear) Fargas.

But, the film belongs to Drew Barrymore, whose winning performance offers no hint of her second career as burgeoning alcoholic and drug addict, and George C. Scott as The Shop's chief hitman, who goes undercover and wins the confidence of the young girl.

Their onscreen chemistry and the unsettling sexual vibe make Firestarter more interesting than it should be, and is solely due to the two stars.

Underrated at the time, Firestarter is pulp fun worth getting hot and bothered over.

Rob Daniel