Film Details:
Directed by David Cronenberg (eXistenz, Videodrome, Dead Ringers, Naked Lunch, Spider)
Written by:
Stephen King (Oh, come on, like you don't know who Stephen King is)
Jeffrey Boam (Innerspace, The Lost Boys, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade)
Starring
Christopher Walken (Pulp Fiction, Suicide Kings)
Martin Sheen (Apocalypse Now, "West Wing")
Brooke Adams (Invasion of the Body Snatchers, The Stuff)
Tom Skerritt (Alien)
Review: by Melissa (e-mail your faithful reviewer)
Unlike most of Cronenberg's material up to this point, this tale did not originate from Cronenberg himself. Instead, it is based on the Stephen King novel of the same name, and the fit between material and director is unusually good. Kind of like chocolate and peanut butter.
The Dead Zone is much more subdued than most of Cronenberg's work, before or since. There is hardly a drop of gore or visceral goo in the entire movie (a cringe-worthy scene involving scissors notwithstanding). Cronenberg's usual biohorror concepts are notably absent. In the absence of these usual cornerstones, however, Cronenberg's other talents really begin to shine.
Suddenly, Cronenberg's usual slow, deliberate pacing picks up to a brisk jog. The script is delightfully crisp. Characters light up the screen, and dazzlingly efficient storytelling sweeps the viewer along for something that is half drama and half suspense. As Chris said as we watched this film again, "You know, it's really nice to find out that some things really are as good as you remembered them to be."
The Dead Zone is further blessed with the talents of Martin Sheen and Christopher Walken. Christopher Walken not only plays a role that shows off his range and his strange sense of diction, but Sheen -- get this -- plays a smarmy politician. Fans of "The West Wing" will get an extra kick out of this flick.
The Dead Zone begins with a love story, which is swiftly cut short by a car crash. The victim, played by Mr. Walken, awakes from a coma five years later to find that the life he knew had vanished, and that he now possesses strange psychic powers, which manifest whenever he touches someone. Throughout the film, he wrestles with whether the new powers are a gift or a curse. Eventually, he discovers the dark future ahead of a political candidate, and is forced to come to terms with what he sees.
The only "fantasy" aspect of The Dead Zone is Walken's ESP. Like much of Stephen King's best work, the sci-fi twist is only the thing that sets the characters in motion -- everything else is human drama. Unlike many directors before him, Cronenberg recognizes that the real treat of King's work is watching human drama placed in unnatural situations.
On a technical level, The Dead Zone is tremendously subdued as compared to Cronenberg's previous films. However, film geeks will likely be fascinated by the director's treatment of Walken's visions: the character is actually showed in the shot with the visions that he is witnessing, like a voyeur who is invisible to everyone but us. It is interesting to note that the technique is not only disarmingly effective here, but is used to even greater effect 20 years later, in Cronenberg's Spider.
DVD Details:
