Spontaneous CombustionMovies like Spontaneous Combustion
- Key Features:
- Government conspiracy, Unintended consequences, Supernatural horror, Genetic mutation, Supernatural abilities, Medical thriller, Family secrets, Violence-moderate, Mystery
- Tone:
- serious, gritty
- Target Audience:
- Sci-fi horror fans, Conspiracy thriller enthusiasts, Cult film aficionados, Fans of unconventional narratives
- Emotional Arc:
- Intrigue → Fear → Dread
Spontaneous Combustion

A young man learns that his parents had been used in an atomic-weapons experiment shortly before his birth, and that the results have had some unexpected effects on him.
Spontaneous Combustion
In a suburban community, moms and dads, one after the other, mysteriously feel the irresistible impulse to attack and kill their own offspring.

When the Universe decides what it wants, it's pointless to resist. With his family's life at stake, Joseph Steadman finds himself the unwilling test subject of a maniacal scientist in a battle that could save the world – or destroy it.

When students in their high school begin inexplicably exploding (literally), seniors Mara and Dylan struggle to survive in a world where each moment may be their last.

A couple agree to have their deceased son cloned under the supervision of an enigmatic doctor, but bizarre things start to happen years after his rebirth.

At the University of Chicago, a research team that includes brilliant student machinist Eddie Kasalivich experiences a breakthrough: a stable form of fusion that may lead to a waste-free energy source. However, a private company wants to exploit the technology, so Kasalivich and physicist Dr. Lily Sinclair are framed for murder, and the fusion device is stolen. On the run from the FBI, they must recover the technology and exonerate themselves.

An earthquake releases a strain of mutant cockroaches with the ability to start fires, which proceed to cause destructive chaos in a small town. The studies carried out by scientist James Parmiter, however, reveal an intent with much more far-reaching consequences.

A pilot battles to save his family and the planet after an experiment for unlimited energy goes wrong.

A young man visits his fiancé's estate to discover that her wheelchair-bound scientist father has discovered a meteorite that emits mutating radiation rays that have turned the plants in his greenhouse to giants. When his own wife falls victim to this mysterious power, the old man takes it upon himself to destroy the glowing object with disastrous results.

Contaminated by a nuclear-plant spill, an Australian worker hides with a woman and tries to warn the public.

Soon after his insufferably arrogant father wins the Nobel Prize for chemistry, Barkley Michaelson is kidnapped by Thaddeus James, a young genius who claims to be Barkley's illegitimate half-brother. Motivated not so much by money as revenge, Thaddeus tries to convince Barkley to help him carry out a multimillion-dollar extortion plot against their patriarch.

A woman's life is torn apart when her husband and infant son are killed in a suicide bombing at a soccer match.

Amanda's deathbed request to her son, John, was for him to destroy all the lab notes etc. from her last experiment. She also blurts out he had a brother. At the funeral John meets Melissa, who claims to be his mother's biggest fan. Together with some of John's friends they go to Amanda's house, but none are prepared for what they find there.

A blackout leaves those affected to consider what is necessary, what is legal, and what is questionable, in order to survive in a predatory environment.

Ideologies collide with fatal results when a military drone contractor meets an enigmatic Pakistani businessman.

A series of eerie events thrusts an unlikely trio onto the trail of a nefarious government conspiracy lurking directly beneath their neighborhood.

A DNA experiment on a rare breed of spider is taking place on a NASA space shuttle, when a freak meteor shower engulfs the shuttle, causing everything to go horribly wrong. One survivor is found on the ship and watched over in a secret location deep in the California desert. The problem continues, as the survivor isn't alone, as another deadly spiders climbs out of him and goes on a rampage around the ship. Curious reporter Marci Eyre must now survive, escape and warn everyone before the spider reaches outside the desert.

Charlene "Charlie" McGee has the amazing ability to start fires with just a glance. Can her psychic power and the love of her father save her from the threatening government agency which wants to destroy her?

Firefighter Gordon Brewer is plunged into the complex and dangerous world of international terrorism after he loses his wife and child in a bombing credited to Claudio 'The Wolf' Perrini.

A trio of interweaved transgressive tales, telling a bizarre stories of suburban patricide and a miraculous flight from justice, a mad sex experiment which unleashes a disfiguring plague, and the obsessive sexual relationship between two prison inmates.

Charles Dexter Ward, a wealthy scientist, uses an ancient diary and human remains to begin a terrifying and bloody pursuit for immortality.

Brad has committed murder and barricaded himself inside his house. With the help of his friends and neighbours, the cops piece together the strange tale of how this nice young man arrived at such a dark place.

After her mother is killed by a car bomb, a 17-year-old girl lives a reckless and decadent lifestyle. She begins having sex with a boy who works at a local ski resort. He falls in love, and she tells him of her suspicions that her strict father was responsible for her mother's death and wants him to help her out of her situation. He must decide whether she's telling the truth or using him to her own ends.

What if a child from another world crash-landed on Earth, but instead of becoming a hero to mankind, he proved to be something far more sinister?

An executive in charge of a nuclear power plant in the Mid-East must stop his son-- who turns out to be the Anti Christ -- from blowing it up.

About to be electrocuted for a catalog of heinous crimes, the unrepentant Horace Pinker transforms into a terrifying energy source. Only young athlete Jonathan Parker, with an uncanny connection to him through bizarre dreams, can fight the powerful demon.

Tom is a British chef in a Bondi restaurant who seems to have decided there are no longer any rules he needs to obey. Whatever Tom is up to, his actions seem to be tolerated by those around him. As Tom descends into darkness, fragments of a different story begin to emerge. All the women in his world are trying in their own, very different ways to help put him back together.

High school student David Lightman has a talent for hacking. But while trying to hack into a computer system to play unreleased video games, he unwittingly taps into the Department of Defense's war computer and initiates a confrontation of global proportions. Together with his friend and a wizardly computer genius, David must race against time to outwit his opponent and prevent a nuclear Armageddon.

A military veteran goes on a journey into the future, where he can foresee his death and is left with questions that could save his life and those he loves.

For more than a decade, parents Andy and Vicky have been on the run, desperate to hide their daughter Charlie from a shadowy federal agency that wants to harness her unprecedented gift for creating fire into a weapon of mass destruction. Andy has taught Charlie how to defuse her power, which is triggered by anger or pain. But as Charlie turns 11, the fire becomes harder and harder to control. After an incident reveals the family's location, a mysterious operative is deployed to hunt down the family and seize Charlie once and for all. Charlie has other plans.

It's 2 A.M. in St. Louis when a routine scientific experiment goes terribly wrong and an explosion shakes the city. A scientific team investigates, clashing with an intergalactic, voltage-devouring creature that vaporizes them.

When virtually all of the residents of Piedmont, New Mexico, are found dead after the return to Earth of a space satellite, the head of the US Air Force's Project Scoop declares an emergency. A group of eminent scientists led by Dr. Jeremy Stone scramble to a secure laboratory and try to first isolate the life form while determining why two people from Piedmont - an old alcoholic and a six-month-old baby - survived. The scientists methodically study the alien life form unaware that it has already mutated and presents a far greater danger in the lab, which is equipped with a nuclear self-destruct device designed to prevent the escape of dangerous biological agents.

A scientist becomes obsessed with returning his family to normalcy after a terrible accident.

A teenager is stuck in a time loop that is not quite the same each time. She must uncover the truth but her actions have consequences for herself and others.

Experiments in biological warfare have destroyed all but a few remnants of the human race. Alone in a lab, eight students work feverishly to create a vaccine before they are forced outside in search for food. It is then that the surviving scientists discover creatures mutated by the plague. Now they prepare to do battle against their worst fear: The Terror Within.

In a top secret Cold War military project an unstoppable, malignant organism who feeds on light and energy is unleashed threatening to destroy everything in its path.

When a deadly airborne virus threatens to wipe out the northeastern United States, teacher Elliot Moore and his wife Alma flee from contaminated cities into the countryside in a fight to discover the truth. Is it terrorism, the accidental release of some toxic military bio weapon -- or something even more sinister?

Four young outsiders teleport to a dangerous universe, which alters their physical form in shocking ways. Their lives irrevocably upended, the team must learn to harness their daunting new abilities and work together to save Earth from a former friend turned enemy.

A top secret experiment intended to produce a superhuman has gone terribly wrong. Now the creators, trapped in a remote desert outpost, are being pursued ruthlessly by their creation.

A couple and their twelve-year-old son move into a giant house for the summer where things aren’t quite what they seem. Every time someone gets hurt on the grounds, the beat-up house seems to repair itself…

Like most of the people in her town, Karen Silkwood works at the local nuclear plant producing highly radioactive plutonium. Exposed one day to a lethal dose of radiation, Karen faces the blank walls of corporate indifference and denial. As her illness increases, her protest grows louder and she becomes an obvious danger to the powers that be.

After raising an unnervingly talented spider in secret, 12-year-old Charlotte must face the truth about her pet and fight for her family's survival.

Three college friends hit the biggest party of the year, where a mysterious phenomenon disrupts the night, quickly descending into a chaos that challenges their friendships - and whether they can stay alive.

The son of the inventor of a matter-transporter, which turned him into a monster when he tried to transport himself along with a tiny housefly, continues to pursue his father's experiment, while his own two sons attempt to extricate him, themselves and the family name from further disaster and scandal.

Bill Whitney is worried that he is different to his sister and parents. They mix with other upper-class people while Bill is more down to earth. Even his girlfriend seems a bit odd. All is revealed when Bill returns home to find a party in full swing.

Father and son coroners receive a mysterious unidentified corpse with no apparent cause of death. As they attempt to examine the "Jane Doe," they discover increasingly bizarre clues that hold the key to her terrifying secrets.

After the mysterious death of scientist Dr. Devin Villiers, Det. Frank Turner and his partner are assigned to protect Villiers' colleague, who revealed that a veteran soldier was subjected to an experiment with the objective of creating the ultimate national security weapon... an undetectable soldier. The experiment failed – with disastrous side effects.

A father survives a plane crash in rural Appalachia, but becomes suspicious of the elderly couple who take him in to nurse him back to health with the ancient remedies.

A gifted high school student steals plutonium from the secret nuclear weapons facility in his home town in order to construct his own nuclear bomb, win a national science fair, and expose the government's secrets.

On a family trip in the African desert, a research scientist unintentionally travels off course and is brutally murdered by an arms dealer. His girlfriend is put to the ultimate survival test as she attempts to evade the killers and protect his teenage daughter.

While doing a series of reports on alternative energy sources, opportunistic reporter Kimberly Wells witnesses an accident at a nuclear power plant. Wells is determined to publicize the incident, but soon finds herself entangled in a sinister conspiracy to keep the full impact of the incident a secret.

Four couples gather for dinner the night a mysterious and powerful comet passes overhead.

When a young boy contracts a mysterious illness, his mother must decide how far she will go to protect him from terrifying forces in her past.

The Freelings' suburban home becomes the center of paranormal activity that opens a portal to the 'other side'. With help, they must cross over to get their daughter back.

Beatrice Prior and Tobias Eaton venture into the world outside of the fence and are taken into protective custody by a mysterious agency known as the Bureau of Genetic Welfare.

A daring physicist travels into the past to stop a mysterious woman from stealing his invention. But once there, he uncovers a surprising truth about the machine, the woman, and his own fractured reality.

A mother concerned about her young son's disturbing behavior thinks something supernatural may be affecting him.

Michael is a young boy living in a typical 1950s suburbanite home... except for his bizarre and horrific nightmares, and continued unease around his parents. Young Michael begins to suspect his parents are cooking more than just hamburgers on the grill outside, but has trouble explaining his fears to his new-found friend Sheila, or the school's social worker.

Inspired by true and harrowing events, an ordinary man finds his world suddenly torn apart as devastating wildfires rip through the surrounding countryside. With precious moments ticking by, he must flee with his son and pregnant wife if they have any hope of surviving the rapid forces of mother nature.

A crew of young environmental activists execute a daring mission to sabotage an oil pipeline.

Set in the future in a time of interplanetary colonization, an unlikely pair race against an impending global crisis and are confronted by the monsters that live inside us all.

A mother and son find themselves faced with a brutal alien invasion where survival will depend on discovering the unthinkable truth about the enemy.

A group of journalists covering George Bush's planned invasion of Iraq in 2003 are skeptical of the presidents claim that Saddam Hussein has "weapons of mass destruction."

A father gets trapped in a one-sided incestuous relationship with his abusive son.

A tale about a happily married couple who would like to have children. Tracy teaches infants, Andy's a college professor. Things are never the same after she is taken to hospital and operated upon by Jed, a "know all" doctor.

Ten years have passed since the world's children fell into a coma. Tonight they're waking up and all hell is breaking loose. An unholy battle between the generations is being waged, and time is not on the side of adults.

A mad scientist's DNA experiment on the bones of a mysterious jungle creature brings the carnivorous beast to life, and only his former assistant Ash Mattley and CIA operative Claire Sommers can stop it.

Charlie Price, a former scientist turned science fiction author, starts living one of his novels when the Federal Science Foundation's weather experiments escape control and turn disastrous.

As an epidemic of a lethal airborne virus - that kills within days - rapidly grows, the worldwide medical community races to find a cure and control the panic that spreads faster than the virus itself.

A journalist goes undercover to ferret out businessman Harrison Hill as her best friend's killer. Posing as one of his temps, she enters into a game of online cat-and-mouse.

Lonely, unstable gas station attendant Melinda is tired of being overshadowed by her more confident, outgoing co-worker Sheila. When the gas station is held up at gunpoint by Billy, a desperate man in need of quick cash, Melinda finds an opportunity to make a connection with the robber, regardless of who gets hurt.

Air Force Colonel Kenneth Penmark and his wife, Christine, adore their daughter Rhoda, despite her secret tendency for selfishness. Christine keeps her knowledge of her daughter's darker side to herself, but when a schoolmate of Rhoda's dies mysteriously, her self-deception unravels.

Research scientists experimenting with time warps are accidentally propelled forward into an unbearable future.

Will Radford is a top analyst for Homeland Security who tracks potential threats through a mass surveillance program, until one day an attack by an unknown entity leads him to question whether the government is hiding something from him... and from the rest of the world.

Residents of peaceful Pebbles Court, Homesville, are being used unknowingly as test experiments for a new 'Body Drug' that causes rapid body decomposition (melting skin etc.) and painful death.

In the near future, due to a breakthrough scientific discovery by Dr. Thomas Harbor, there is now definitive proof of an afterlife. While countless people have chosen suicide to reset their existence, others try to decide what it all means. Among them is Dr. Harbor's son Will, who has arrived at his father's isolated compound with a mysterious young woman named Isla. There, they discover the strange acolytes who help Dr. Harbor with his experiments.

A family discovers that dark spirits have invaded their home after their son inexplicably falls into an endless sleep. When they reach out to a professional for help, they learn things are a lot more personal than they thought.

A young man's life is turned upside down when his violent dreams begin to blend with reality.

Following the death of celebrated scientist Susan Carter, her son Brian is surprised to inherit her controversial experimental addiction treatment center. When he and some friends visit the property, they uncover a terrifying and deadly secret.

Jack and Melissa are frightened by their son's bizarre and violent behavior; they soon learn that he is the gateway to the Apocalypse, and it will happen on his birthday, 11-11-11.

As a child, Donald was tormented by his mother who used fire as a punishment. Now a deranged adult, Donald stalks women at clubs, then takes them home where he kills them with a flamethrower.

When a devious plot separates CIA agent Peter Sandza from his son, Robin, the distraught father manages to see through the ruse. Taken because of his psychic abilities, Robin is being held by Ben Childress, who is studying people with supernatural powers in hopes of developing their talents as weapons. Soon Peter pairs up with Gillian, a teen who has telekinesis, to find and rescue Robin.

It's not easy being a teen like Duncan. His mom wants him to pay more attention to his homework, while his dad - a 120-foot-tall monster known as a Kaiju - wants him to become the next King of All Monsters. When these worlds collide, Duncan must use his human wits and his Kaiju powers - including super strength, agility and the ability to breathe fire - to protect his family and friends from a giant monster rampage.

Environmental activist Scott is accidentally involved in a bomb attack on a fuel storage facility. The gigantic explosion unleashes a roller of fire that rolls towards Los Angeles. Desperate, Scott and his colleagues want to save the city. But for the media they are considered to be the culprits - who will soon be hunted by killers ...

An ordinary man sees a bright light descend from the sky, and discovers he now has super-intelligence and telekinesis.

Plagued by a violent recurring nightmare, college student Stefanie heads home to track down the one person who might be able to break the cycle and save her family from the grisly demise that inevitably awaits them all.

Chaos consumes a small town when a chemical facility explodes releasing a deadly toxin. Moments after the leak, the town's residents show signs of mutation, causing the military to quarantine the area leaving any survivors helpless and trapped inside. The story follows Jim, a young man isolated within the red zone, as he eludes flesh eating zombies in an attempt to win back his freedom.

Jess, a newly separated mother and nurse, moves into her old family farmhouse with Tyler, her teenage daughter, and Owen, her eight-year-old son. One night, the family dog senses something in the woods and runs off to find it. He returns a couple of days later and attacks Owen, savagely biting him before Jess is able to intervene. Owen is rushed to the hospital. His condition worsens, and no one can figure out why... until Jess discovers a disturbing cure...

After a mysterious global crisis, a young girl is left alone to hide from a malevolent power that stalks her home. Her parents eventually return and the struggle begins to save their daughter.

A father and daughter are on their way to dance camp when they spot the girl's best friend on the side of the road. When they stop to offer the friend a ride, their good intentions soon result in terrible consequences.

Set in the 22nd century, when a battered salvage ship sends out a distress signal, the seasoned crew of the rescue hospital ship Nova-17 responds. What they find is a black hole--that threatens to destroy both ships--and a mysterious survivor whose body quickly mutates into a monstrous and deadly form.

A criminal psychologist loses his arm in a car crash, and becomes one of three patients to have their missing limbs replaced by those belonging to an executed serial killer. One of them dies violently, and disturbing occurrences start happening to the surviving two.

When a man's daughter is suddenly taken during a championship hockey game – with the captors demanding a billion dollars by game's end – he frantically sets a plan in motion to rescue her and abort an impending explosion before the final buzzer.

A young boy stays with his aunt and uncle, and befriends his cousin who's the same age. But his cousin begins showing increasing signs of psychotic behavior.

When strange lights descend on the city of Los Angeles, people are drawn outside like moths to a flame where an extraterrestrial force threatens to swallow the entire human population off the face of the Earth. Now the band of survivors must fight for their lives as the world unravels around them.

Construction worker Donald is having a hard time getting anything good to eat since his wife has decided to only cook gourmet foods. That and her constant harping causes him to snap, so he whacks her. Somewhere in the confusion he comes up with a new use for the microwave oven, and begins to eat much better. Soon he's experimenting with different recipes. And different meats.

Desperate to save their marriage, a young couple takes a deal to move into their dream home, but disturbing events reveal the house's troubled history.

A boy named Eli with a rare autoimmune disorder is confined to a special experimental clinic for his treatment. He soon begins experiencing supernatural forces, turning the supposedly safe facility into a haunted prison for him and his fellow patients.


