Firestarter Ending Explained (Spoilers)

A young girl tries to understand how she mysteriously gained the power to set things on fire with her mind.

Firestarter: Spoilers Below

Andy and Vicky are struggling to provide their daughter, Charlie, with a regular childhood, but it is hard when she can set things on fire using her mind. They are familiar with superpowers because they both have them as a result of being part of a shady scientific study back when they were in college. Andy's power allows him to control other people, which he uses as a life coach. However, using his power has begun to cause him physical pain, bleeding from his eyeballs.

Charlie has been using mindfulness techniques to suppress her powers for years, but now she has trouble controlling herself for unknown reasons. The family decides to go on the run again because Charlie caused a small explosion at school. They know that there are people looking for them who will take Charlie away, and they want to avoid them. The people after them are why they've never allowed Charlie to use the internet or modern technology—because it makes it easier to find them.

The evil organization known as The Shop tasks the superpowered bounty hunter John Rainbird with capturing Charlie and bringing her in for further experimentation. The Shop is the organization that gave Charlie's parents the superpower drug years ago, and now they want to study Charlie because she was born with superpowers.

A failed attempt by John Rainbird to kidnap Charlie leaves Charlie's mother dead. We learn that Vicky had the power of telekinesis and that Charlie has that power too. Charlie and her dad are on the run, and her dad tells her that she might also have the ability to "push." He also told her the story of when The Shop kidnapped her as a baby, but he found her because they were connected psychically. Andy divulges that he killed the men who abducted her and laments that. He gets her to swear never to utilize her abilities to injure anyone.

John Rainbird eventually catches up with Charlie and her father. Andy uses his ability to confuse Rainbird, giving Charlie a chance to escape. The father is taken to The Shop, where Captain Hollister interrogates him. Hollister tells him he has to call Charlie to come there. Meanwhile, Rainbird expresses remorse for the pain he has caused to his own kind, other people with unique abilities.

As Charlie flees, she hears her dad calling to her. She arrives at The Shop's facility, maims an agent's face with fire, steals his key card, and locates her dad. He's close to death and sees her in surprise. It wasn't him who contacted her; it was John Rainbird.

Captain Hollister appears behind Charlie's father and tells Charlie that he will die because his brain is bleeding whenever he uses his abilities. One more use, she says, will kill him. It's possible that the same thing could happen to Charlie, but if she goes with The Shop, they will help her. Obviously, it's not true - these are the bad guys!

Hollister sycophantically loiters behind Charlie's father, assuming that Charlie would never harm her if it meant harming her father as well. And she's correct--but she was wrong to think that Charlie's father wouldn't be capable of giving one final push. Using his push, dad forces Charlie to set both Hollister and himself on fire.

Devastated, Charlie employs a "burn it all down" policy to escape the facility. She kills people indiscriminately. At first, it looks like the agents in fire-retardant suits will be able to capture her, but then John Rainbird appears and shoots them. He offers himself up for Charlie to kill, and she almost does, but then decides to spare him. She leaves the building, incinerates it, and falls to the ground crying on the beach.

When John Rainbird appears, he offers her a hand, which she accepts. The film's final shot implies that the two of them are now a team, with Rainbird carrying Charlie in his arms down the beach. This is a different ending from the '80s movie and the original novel.

Firestarter Ending Explained (Spoilers) - ALL HORROR Tweet it