David Phillips (Gary Coleman) is a teenager who sets fires when he gets upset.  He has many reasons to be upset.  His parents (Ron O’Neal and Cicely Tyson) are getting divorced and are constantly fighting.  His teachers at school are always getting on his back.  He has to take care of his younger siblings and his dog.  He can’t even get the bigger kids in school to let him play basketball with them.  At first, David just plays with his lighter but, after he accidentally sets his mother’s coat on fire, David discovers that he likes to watch things burn.  David and his mother both claim it’s just coincidence that David is always nearby whenever a fire breaks out but Fire Chief Walker (Yaphet Kotto) knows what’s really going on.  After David nearly burns down his house, Walker tries to reach him before it’s too late.

This isn’t really meant to be a horror film  but it’s shot like one, with plenty of scenes of Gary Coleman staring at a burning fire with a possessed-look in his eyes.  The movie tries to make David sympathetic but the scene where he threatens his own dog with a lighter suggests that David has more problems than just his parents splitting up.  This was Gary Coleman’s first dramatic role.  I think it may have also been his only dramatic role.  It’s not that he’s not convincing as a really angry kid.  It’s just that he’s Gary Coleman so, no matter how much the movie tries, it still comes across as being a special episode of Diff’rent Strokes where Arnold becomes a pyromaniac.  Coleman tries to play up the drama of the situation but it’s hard not to laugh whenever he looks shocked at one of the fires that he has just started.  Every scene seems like it should end with Conrad Bain showing up with the cops.

For years, this movie was next to impossible to find but finally, someone found an old VHS tape in their garage and uploaded the movie to both YouTube and the Internet Archive, ensuring the world will never forget the time that Gary Coleman played with fire.

One final note: the director is better known for eventually becoming business partners with notorious Hollywood madam, Heidi Fleiss.