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51 of 51 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A brilliant, underappreciated adaptation of King's novel, November 30, 2003
For some reason, The Dead Zone has always been one of my least favorite Stephen King novels, but I have to say this movie adaptation of the novel is first-rate indeed, one of the most underappreciated of all the movies based on the work of the king of horror. The film's success is due in large part to Christopher Walken; with a less capable actor filling the role of Johnny Smith, this movie could have turned out as flat as a pancake. Walken, the consummate actor, is mesmerizing here. It's a complex role to play, as Johnny Smith has not exactly been blessed by the kind hands of fate. When we first meet him, he is a happy English teacher preparing to marry the woman he loves; a stormy night and a runaway milk tanker later, he wakes up to find that five years have passed, his girl has married someone else, and he is all but incapable of even walking. If you think this is a film about eliminating a politician of great and destructive evil, you're not even half-right. While that is of course the focus of the concluding minutes, the movie itself is all about Johnny's struggles to come to terms with his new life, a new life which includes a frightening power to see into the past and future of those whom he physically touches. The first manifestation comes in handy, as he helps save a nurse's little girl from dying in a fire, but traumatic, soul-draining visions of horror take a lot out of a guy as time moves on. Johnny first comes to terms with his power when he agrees to help the police discover the identity of an elusive serial killer walking the streets of Castle Rock (which, for some strange reason, is supposedly located in New Hampshire rather than Maine). This experience only makes him retreat farther into himself, compelling him to move to another town and try to begin a new life within the comfort of his own protective walls. A traumatic vision concerning one of the students he is tutoring leads him to discover a new aspect of his power, and this discovery comes just in time for him to make a difficult decision as to whether or not to sacrifice his own life in order to prevent a truly cataclysmic event from taking place in the future. David Cronenberg directs this bleak but absorbing film, but don't expect the kind of gore Cronenberg is famous for, as this is not a gore-mired film by any means (although the deaths we do witness are pretty satisfyingly presented). The Dead Zone is a psychological study of human nature and a suspenseful thriller, not a horror movie per se. Martin Sheen leaves an unforgettable mark on the film with his portrayal of as slimy and dangerous a politician as you would ever want to meet (and, as a side note, impersonating Elvis Presley's voice apparently goes over big among New England voters for some reason). A lot of care and detail went into the making of The Dead Zone, and it shows. The atmosphere is dark and palpable from start to finish, and Christopher Walken commands the viewer's rapt attention at all times. There are a number of very moving scenes, particularly in relation to Johnny's new relationship with his former fiancée, so don't be surprised if Walken coaxes a tear or two out of the corners of your eyes. Many of the early movies based on King novels did not translate to the big screen very effectively, but The Dead Zone is an often overlooked and very impressive exception.
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22 of 22 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Dead Zone finally delivers dead-on King adaptation, July 10, 1999
By A Customer
The Dead Zone is the finest movie adaptation of a Stephen King novel because it captures perfectly the essence of true terror: the haunts of the past mixed with the unpredictability of the future. Christopher Walken captures this concoction and presents a dead-on performance as a man who awakens from a lengthy coma to discover he has the gift(or curse)of not only being able to predict the future but to change it. The Dead Zone works so well because most of it takes place in a small town atmosphere, which gives the characters the opportunity to fully develop. It also helps to have a first-rate supporting cast with the likes of accomplished actors such as Anthony Zerbe, Tom Skeritt, and Martin Sheen among many others. And since the tone of the film is largely grim, most of the scenes are shot appropriately in winter(with minimalist surroundings and less emphasis on special effects). But all told, it's just great to see a King adaptation that doesn't center around one gory fright after another, but instead presents the frightening unpredictability of the human soul in stark (almost Orwellian) terms.
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17 of 17 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Genuinely haunting, March 12, 2001
By A Customer
In my opinion, this is the best film made from a Stephen King work, but it may be too understated for its own good. I've visited many Stephen King discussion websites, and "The Dead Zone" appears surprisingly rarely in the threads about movies made from King works. One would expect that in a film featuring Christopher Walken and Martin Sheen, Walken would play the villain and Sheen the hero. This film turns that assumption neatly on its head, and it's a wise choice, too; for all his talent and oddball appeal, Walken does not have the type of oily charisma needed for Greg Stillson, the character Sheen plays. Sheen, however, does a terrific (though at times over-the-top) job of playing a wolf-in-sheep's-clothing politician, a far cry from the saintly President Bartlett he currently plays on TV's "The West Wing." Walken's performance as Johnny Smith (great name) is more muted--although that scene where he smashes the vase and yells "THE ICE IS GONNA BREAK!" never fails to startle me--and he hits all of the right notes playing a protagonist who is atypically complex for movies, and certainly for "horror" movies (the genre this movie is generally relegated to). Smith starts out righteously wounded, then becomes withdrawn and self-pitying, and finally is faced with a Cassandra-like dilemma (he knows the dreadful future, and also that no one will believe him), but unlike Cassandra, he can do something to prevent it, even though it will mean sacrificing himself. With this knowledge, he realizes that what he'd thought was a curse was really a gift, as he himself says. This film is also atypical for the "horror" genre in that it has more than its share of heartbreaking scenes. The scene that is most so, for me anyway, is when Smith tells Sarah (Brooke Adams, who gives another of the film's roundly excellent performances) that he wishes to be like Irving's Ichabod Crane: "And as he was a bachelor and in nobody's debt, nobody troubled their heads about him anymore."
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