Spontaneous Combustion

Spontaneous Combustion (1990) is a sci-fi horror film you can watch online on iFILM, directed by Tobe Hooper — the filmmaker behind The Texas Chain Saw Massacre and Poltergeist. Brad Dourif plays Sam, a young man who discovers his parents were used as unwitting test subjects in a classified 1950s nuclear experiment, with effects that were never reported and never treated.

The effects found Sam instead. He has pyrokinesis — he can ignite things through sheer emotion, and the episodes are getting harder to suppress. Hooper frames the horror around a particular American anxiety: the government ran its tests, sealed its files, and walked away, while the damage worked its way down a generation. Dourif plays the character at a sustained pitch of controlled desperation that keeps the film grounded even when the premise strains. Stream it on iFILM.