1979

I don’t know what happened in the middle of last century, but it seems like every other movie villain had mommy issues. Or maybe it was screenwriters who had mommy issues. Either way, this movie had me at the summary when they mentioned “flamethrower.” Fire and mommy issues. Bring on the cliches. Just pile them on like there’s no one is watching. Because I don’t know how many people have actually seen this movie.

The movie starts with a worker at an incinerator plant staring at the fire. He watches his co-worker burn almost to death without doing anything. In a normal setting, I would believe he does this because that asshole stole his lunch or all the overtime, but this is horror movie setting. This is the main character introducing himself to the audience as a sadist and severely damaged human being. The smile while the co-worker burned was just the icing.

After watching someone become human BBQ, a normal person would be scarred for life. But jokes on you, because the main character (Donny) is ALREADY scarred for life! Through flashbacks we learn his crazy-as-a-loon mother purposely burned him when he was a child to rid him of evil and punishment for the dad taking off. So obviously, not a healthy relationship there. As if there ever is in a horror movie.

When Donny gets home from work he finds out his mother has died, and reacts by blasting disco music, jumping on the furniture, putting out lit cigarettes on the mother’s figurines, and yelling at his mother’s dead body. Normal grieving process. After this manic moment, he calms down and starts a home improvement project. Or home un-improvement project. Either way, not many home buyers have use for the aluminum room he constructs. Unless, of course you are a serial killer. Luckily enough, Donny is about to become one!

At the urging of the voices in his head, Donny heads out to find his first victim. It goes as well as you would expect. People were very trusting in small New Jersey towns in the 1980s, so it wasn’t hard to get her in his truck and to his house. He sics his flamethrower on her and feels so good about it, he goes out a couple days later and gets another lady for his corpse museum. And that’s what it ends up being. He dresses up his victim’s burned bones in his mother’s clothes and arranged them around the house. He has cemented his title as “master of the flame.”

His friend and a local priest figure something is up, but instead of calling the cops, they try to fix the situation themselves. Maybe New Jersey in the early 80s was filled with police corruption, as well as a very trusting public. Actually that’s probably true. However, instead of trying to save Donny, they just end up on fire. Then Donny tries to punish his corpses for “ratting him out” but instead ends up burning to death inside his own house. Surrounded by the corpses he tried to “save.” Life sure is ironic.

At the end of the movie, a little boy is watching the news program that is reporting on the house fire. After his mother beats him, he starts to hear the same voices that Donny was hearing. So I guess the message of this movie is: demons are transient?