Spontaneous Combustion is a 1990

1990 in film

The year 1990 in film involved some significant events.-Events:* CGI technique is expanded with motion capture for CGI characters, used in Total Recall .* The first digitally-manipulated matte painting is used, in Die Hard 2....

 film directed by Tobe Hooper

Tobe Hooper

Tobe Hooper is an American film director and screenwriter, best known for his work in the horror film genre. His works include the cult classic The Texas Chain Saw Massacre , along with its first sequel, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 ; the three-time Emmy-nominated Stephen King film adaptation...

. The plot of this science fiction

Science fiction

Science fiction is a genre of fiction dealing with imaginary but more or less plausible content such as future settings, futuristic science and technology, space travel, aliens, and paranormal abilities...

 horror film

Horror film

Horror films seek to elicit a negative emotional reaction from viewers by playing on the audience's most primal fears. They often feature scenes that startle the viewer through the means of macabre and the supernatural, thus frequently overlapping with the fantasy and science fiction genres...

 revolves around a young man with psychokinetic

Psychokinesis

The term psychokinesis , also referred to as telekinesis with respect to strictly describing movement of matter, sometimes abbreviated PK and TK respectively, is a term...

 powers. Actor

Actor

An actor is a person who acts in a dramatic production and who works in film, television, theatre, or radio in that capacity...

 Brad Dourif

Brad Dourif

Bradford Claude "Brad" Dourif is an American film and television actor who gained early fame for his portrayal of Billy Bibbit in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, and has since appeared in a number of memorable roles, including the voice of Chucky in the Child's Play franchise, Younger Brother in...

 plays the role of Sam, who learns that his parents were part of an atomic bomb experiment. As an adult, Sam discovers he has the power of pyrokinesis

Pyrokinesis

Pyrokinesis, derived from the Greek words and , was the name coined by horror novelist Stephen King for the ability to create or to control fire with the mind that he gave to the protagonist Charlie McGee in Firestarter...

. He is able to control fire and electricity but with terrible consequences to his body afterwards.

The cast includes actors Melinda Dillon

Melinda Dillon

Melinda Rose Dillon is an American actress, perhaps best known for her roles in Close Encounters of the Third Kind and the holiday classic A Christmas Story.-Early life and career:...

 and Cynthia Bain. Director Tobe Hooper was creator of the screenplay

Screenplay

A screenplay or script is a written work that is made especially for a film or television program. Screenplays can be original works or adaptations from existing pieces of writing. In them, the movement, actions, expression, and dialogues of the characters are also narrated...

 and story, with writer Howard Goldberg. Zachary Selig

Zachary Selig

Zachary Selig is an American artist, author, interior designer and spiritist.-Biography:His first publication as author and illustrator was the bestselling Kundalini Awakening - A Gentle Guide to Chakra Activation and Spiritual Growth.Selig is a magic realist painter...

, a spiritist, was the consultant

Consultant

A consultant is a professional who provides professional or expert advice in a particular area such as management, accountancy, the environment, entertainment, technology, law , human resources, marketing, emergency management, food production, medicine, finance, life management, economics, public...

 of paranormal

Paranormal

Paranormal is a general term that designates experiences that lie outside "the range of normal experience or scientific explanation" or that indicates phenomena understood to be outside of science's current ability to explain or measure...

 phenomena for Hooper and the film.

It was nominated for best film in the 1991 Fantasporto

Fantasporto

Fantasporto, also known as Fantas, is an international film festival, annually organized since 1981 in Porto, Portugal. Giving screen space to commercial feature films, auteur films and experimental projects from all over the world, Fantasporto has created enthusiastic audiences, ranging from...

International Fantasy Film Awards.