The Dead Zone

Title: The Dead Zone
Director: David Cronenberg
Released: 1983
Starring: Christopher Walken, Brooke Adams, Tom Skerritt, Herbert Lom, Anthony Zerbe, Colleen Dewhurst, Martin Sheen

Plot: After a car crash leaves school teacher Johnny (Walken) in a coma for five years he awakens with psychic abilities which allow him to see the future of any person he has contact with.

Review: One of the more unusual movie choices for Cronenberg especially being released when he was at the height of his powers of the maestro of body horror which would hit its peak three years later with his remake of The Fly. Of course it’s not just Cronenberg who is playing against type as Christopher Walken heads up this Stephen King adaptation as the psychic school teacher Johnny, a role which has originally been set to be played by Bill Murray, an equally inspired choice for the role as Walken. 

Toning down many of his usual quirks (even his hair is uncharastically flat) Walken is a pretty inspired choice for the role as he’s initially introduced with everything going his way in life as he has a girlfriend and liked by his students only to lose everything when a car crash lands him in a coma leaving him trying to put his life back together especially when he finds out that not only has life continued to move on without him with his girlfriend Sarah (Adams) having got married and had a kid in the years which have passed but he also has to try and make sense of the psychic flashes of the future he gets whenever he touches someone. It’s a role which really brings out a more dramatic side to Walken’s performance as he brings out a vulnerable side to this character who is not only trying to adapt to his new abilities but also trying to find a way to rebuild his life. 

In much the same way as he approached Naked Lunch, Cronenberg doesn’t aim for a straight adaptation of Stephen King’s book with Jeffrey Boam cutting out most of the story with Cronenberg further condensing the script to a three episode structure which even got the mark of approval from King himself who felt that the script “improved and intensified the power of the narrative”. King would also submit a script for the film which focused more on Johnny helping to track down the Castle Rock Killer which Cronenberg felt was “needlessly brutal” and was rejected in favor of Boams script. With this episodic structure the film did feel a little jarring when I first watched it with the Castle Rock Killer mystery being wrapped up around the halfway point and the film focusing on Johnny rebuilding his life and trying to find a way to stop Martin Sheen’s senate candidate Greg Stillson who he receives a vision of starting a nuclear war as the president which much like John Carpenter’s They Live only feels all the more chilling in the shadow of Trump’s presidential dalliance. 

Despite being a Horror film there is much more of a focus here on the drama which is only further helped by Walken being so engaging as Johnny and supported by equally interesting characters which build this small town vision where the dark secrets run underneath the seemingly idyllic surroundings. At the same time Johnny and Sarah trying to deal with their feelings for each other, having been put on hold for the last five years only adds to the film as much as him trying to figure out how to use his newly awoken powers which prove to be a blessing as much as a curse as he reveals with a cupboard of mail from people hoping that he might be able to help them too. 

When it comes to Stillson he truly presents Johnny with the first real challenge as all the other uses of his abilities are based around stopping tragic events from happening were as with Stillson we get the classic conundrum of if you could kill Hitler before he rose to power would you and certainly with Stillson being shown launching a pre-emptive nuclear strike it’s easy to view him the same. The fact it boils down to whether Johnny chooses to take a shot or not only adds to the finale making it a suitable climatic moment for his abilities. 

Light on horror outside of a couple of memorable moments the film is really driven by the human drama here and yet somehow still manages to be a satisfactory treatment of its premise thanks to some great performances alongside the subtle world building easily makes this one of the better Stephen King adaptations if one which is still far too overlooked.