Dead Zone
At his core, Stephen King is the living epitome of a hack horror writer, taking seemingly any random idea that comes into his head (good or bad) and always churning out a 400+ page novel from it. Even moreso, Kingâs stories more than literally any of the other horror writers combined almost always find their way to being adapted into movies both theatrical or for television with the varied success rate for any of these films often being dependent on whoever the director and / or writer doing the adaptation is and their ability to translate his work into an enjoyable movie. As hit or miss as many of these movies are, the one adaptation that perhaps edges out all the others is this 1983 release directed by one David Cronenberg, a guy who had made groundbreaking strides in the so called âbody horrorâ subgenre that had featured characters coming to terms with literal metabolic physical changes embodied through gruesome special F/X, but this particular film was different, focusing instead on a character who had suddenly gained mind altering psychic abilities that in many ways was no different than the more outwardly physical changes endured by other characters in Cronenberg films, but as a result forcing this movie to take on a more cerebral approach to its main characterâs plight as opposed to Jeff Goldblumâs nightmarish transformation in The Fly. As it turns out, when depending more on mood and story nuances as opposed to gore, Cronenberg proved himself to be an expert in the field, creating not so much a horror movie per se but rather a psychological thriller that was absolutely drenched with heart and soul, including eliciting at least two acting performances that were deserving of legitimate Oscar consideration (one for Best Actor and one for Supporting Actor) along with creating a main villain (not introduced until well past the halfway mark) who has endured as an eerily prescient reference for various political climates in the years since. In the (Oscar worthy) lead acting performance, we see Christopher Walken take on the role of Johnny Smith, a goofy, nerdy, but still amicable English teacher excitedly planning on marrying the love of his life (Brooke Adams) with whom he has yet to consummate the relationship. After one of their dates together on a roller coaster (where he has an unexplained premonition of some kind), she finally offers to have him spend the night with her to which he declines and decides to drive home instead. Unfortunately, he winds up in a horrible car wreck, one which sees him locked into a coma for 5 years, only to awake under the care of a kindly doctor (Herbert Lom, who himself deserved an Supporting Actor Oscar nomination of his own for taking on a standard stock character role and turning it into something greater than what it should have been). After being told of his condition along with learning that his girlfriend has married another, Walken soon discovers that he not only has the ability of predicting a personâs future with just a touch of their hand, he can also gain insight on the person by knowing things about them which he would have no way of knowing otherwise and more importantly, be able to warn and thus ward off any future events where something terrible could very well happen if someone makes certain choices or decisions in their life. Word spreads around about his abilities and soon he finds himself approached by a sheriff (Tom Skerritt) who asks for his help in catching a depraved serial killer (in the town of Castle Rock no less, Kingâs imaginary little haven where several of his stories take place) whoâs been murdering innocent girls for a number of months. From there on he successfully transitions to his original love of teaching, becoming a private tutor and finally encountering the one and only Greg Stillson (Martin Sheen in a role that for him prophesized his future starring role as The President on The West Wing and made him for a long time the go to guy for playing any charismatic political figures), a rising third party candidate for The U.S. Senate who has already expressed his ambitions for The White House as well and when Walken (who is devoutly apolitical and admits to not even being a registered voter) attends a Stillson rally and actually gets to shake his hand, he receives a possible vision of the future that is terrifying beyond words: Stillson as President cajoling a cabinet member into putting his hand on the touch screen that (along with his own) will launch a nuclear attack that is heavily implied is completely unnecessary in any way, shape or form (he even ignores offers for a âdiplomatic solutionâ) but one which he claims is him honoring the mandate given to him by the will of the people which nonetheless makes him into something resembling a literal Armageddon Man, one who claims to be a man of the people but is not above using dirty tricks such as blackmailing a newspaper columnist into not writing a negative piece about him (King would later claim in recent years that he had somehow foretold the rise of Donald Trump with the fictional Stillson character, but the so called Stillson Analogy has also been applied to Presidents Clinton, W. Bush, and Obama as well as it does to any overly charismatic leader). Horrified by his discovery, Walken goes to see Lom, where in the filmâs best (and most understated) scene, Walken casually asks his doctor, friend and confidante (who happens to be Jewish and had escaped The Nazis during World War 2) what he would do if he had prior knowledge of what Hitler was capable of and in so knowing, would he had killed him in order to save lives in the future with Lomâs answer being such an expertly written and acted bit that it would have made a wonderful Oscar clip if that had only been the case. The things that make this film work so well is the human element of the whole affair, beautifully embodied by Walken who even with his usual detached nature uses it to perfection to show us Johnnyâs isolation after his condition becomes known, pining for his old girlfriend Adams before she suddenly comes to see him, bringing along her kid (but not her husband) in order to fulfill the promise which she made to him long ago and if just for one day, let him know what it feels like for them to be together as if they were a family, a bittersweet touch that apart from the psychic phenomena angle and much of Martin Sheenâs theatrics brings the story the emotional weight it deserves as Walken realizes that no matter what abilities he might have now, he lost a lot more than he ever gained in that accident and that the only thing which he can do now (since he feels that his physical body is weakening and dying from his mental condition) besides working as a private tutor is to utilize his abilities to become a hero of sorts, being able to touch bad people and expose them for their own sins with the most notable example being the hunt for the serial killer with Skerritt, a segment of the movie that almost plays out as being its own little story onto itself complete with its own shocking twist. Another effective scene shows Walken and Lom at a press conference where a snide reporter decides to test him by taking his hand only for Walken to tell him in front of the press corps that he knows why the reporterâs sister killed herself, something that shuts the guy up pretty quickly and makes him pull away. But in the end itâs the showdown with Sheenâs maniacal politician Stillson that this is all about, a showdown complicated by the fact that Walkenâs old girlfriend Adams (and her husband) are actively working for the campaign and despite the various analogies about who the âreal lifeâ Stillson could be, the film smartly defers from overtly stating the (third party) candidateâs actual political leanings, preferring instead to give us a little taste of both (including having Stillson wear a âhard hatâ as his trademark, a practice thatâs been used by almost every âcommon manâ Democratic candidate up through Obama) while always intimating that he is far WORSE than any regular old partisan politician. But then there is the subtext as well that Walkenâs Johnny (who has sworn off believing in God after his experience) has actually been summoned by a higher power to use his powers to defeat evil and thus save the world (even if it means his own life), which leads up to an emotional, tear jerking ending that shows that while many might question the way your life ended, having the knowledge that you did so in order to save all of humanity is the most moving validation imaginableâŚ
10/10