The Dead Zone (1983)
a review by Evan Landon
Nuances are subtle.
Back in my day (shut up), films would utilize nuance in a flattering way to convey a story within the utterly confining aspects of ambiguity. Nowadays, nuances are close to nil with exposition reigning king. Don't get that twisted, exposition is definitely important to sharpening the edges & defining what a good story needs to allow an audience to be right there with the characters of the story. I give exposition as much as a hard time as anybody, but gone are the days of Hemingway displaying a well-written exposition that allows the reader to formulate what happens in their own heads without given a background, race, sex, or timeframe that would allow supposition & clues to use imagination for the premise & sometimes even an ending. Instead, we get a batman telling us he us punched a bad guy thru a fucking wall. Yeah, I know. We just saw it, dickhead.
Well, brace yourselves folks, because I watched a very underrated film from 1983 made by David Cronenberg starring a young Christopher Walken based off a book made 4 years earlier written by Stephen King called The Dead Zone. Ever heard of it? Let's jump in then, shall we..?
The story begins with our main character, Johnny Smith (paying no expense on making him an every man in nomenclature, I'm sure), who is a charming school teacher & is an unassuming, stand-up guy with a girlfriend who is a co-worker that have yet to do the deed, yet still wish to get married. Welp, unfairly for our protagonist never gets to have his beautiful day because on the way home from dropping off said girlfriend, he barrels into an 18 wheeler full of milk and ends up in a coma for 5 years. With his job gone, his girlfriend now married to someone else, Johnny Boy is given something that cannot be taken away: Psychic Abilities!
I won't get too far into spoilers because this movie does a great time doing itself. Essentially, which should be an anthology gives way to breaks in the narrative, but is somehow well thought out through the torment of a man going thru a trauma none have ever heard of, but he is now sought out for it.
If you have read the book or seen the movie, you already know what happens. Disclaimer: I have never thought predicting the future was cool. I mean, the tv show “Psych” made it cool, but imagine the burden of actually being a fucking psychic & merely acting like it are insane!
David Cronenberg really does work backwards in style the way he did with Nightbreed or even Crash as to not give too much body horror, yet enough to actually give you a decent scare. Of course, this was 4 years before the movie was made that Stephen actually written this one. What we get, essentially, is an anthology movie brought together thru a worthwhile protagonist named “Johnny” who really was burdened with psychic powers. But at what cost?
Set this one against an incredible score by Michael Kamen & yeah, it should not have only made 20 mill against a 7 mill budget, but hey... you wanted a cult classic!
On paper, this one would be my schtick... Congrats, 'tis.
3.5 out of 5