There was always a sleepwalker edging along the parapet of a skyscraper with his arms reaching toward the moon, or a werewolf starting to howl in the middle of Times Square, or a pyromaniac setting fire to the dock warehouses.

NEWYORKER: The Daughters of the Moon

Jennifer Jason Leigh and Rebecca DeMornay also show up, but only Robert De Niro, as an arson investigator, and Donald Sutherland, as a pyromaniac, rise above the material.

NEWYORKER: Backdraft

The hillside homes were boarded up or abandoned and claimed by vermin and squatters, some of who had a pyromaniac bent.

BBC: Va-va-Valparaiso