"That's a nice-a donut."
Tuesday, January 03, 2006
The Dead Zone (1983)
The Dead Zone was a very intriguing collaboration between the modern Master of Horror in the literary world, Stephen King, and the Baron of Blood, renowned Canadian director David Cronenberg. Based on the Stephen King novel, and actually one of the few books of his that I haven't read, this is yet another entry into the good idea, but bad implementation list in cinema.
Johnny Smith (Christopher Walken) is a schoolteacher who is struck by tragedy one dark, gloomy night when his car strikes a tractor trailer and he ends up in a coma ...for several years. He miraculously awakens one day and soon discovers that he has a new strange and unusual psychic-like power to see people's futures (or flashbacks, in some cases), simply by touching them. The first time it happens, he senses that his nurse's home is on fire and her child is in danger. Eventually word of his "gift" begins to spread and he even starts helping out with an ongoing police murder investigation. Meanwhile, his girlfriend Sarah (Brooke Adams) from before the crash (who is now married with a kid) reenters his life. She is a campaign worker for a sleazy up-and-coming candidate running for the U.S. Senate (Martin Sheen) who happens to be on the fast track to the Presidency. The phrase "dead zone" has to do with "blank spots" that occur in Johnny's prophecies - in that he can potentially alter the future outcomes. And it is here where things take a decidedly fateful turn.
Though the movie is sometimes regarded and marketed as a "horror" film, it most definitely is not. It's actually one of those films that defies characterization into one neat-and-easy genre, though it is more of a dramatic study with flares of action-y thrills. The problem is that it isn't focused on the right things. The attraction and yearning that Johnny and Sarah have for one another is good and believable, but doesn't have much of a place or need anywhere. And too much time is spent in the wrong places on building characterization for Johnny. Show us more of his visions of people! These were easily the best parts of the movie. Walken hadn't yet hit his farcical overacting stage (where each performance is a parody of the previous one), but in fact seems to underact here. He seems to be sleepwalking through much of it and while his character certainly has issues, you never get a real sense of the misery and inner terror that he is living through.
Cronenberg broke into the business with television films and here the overall production values feels rather low, like it also could just as well have been a made-for-TV fare. In the end, The Dead Zone doesn't really feel like a Cronenberg film (not weird enough) or a King film (not scary enough... or at all, really). Things in this world are just too sterile and clinical. Still, the story is certainly an original and refreshing idea and is at least worth a look.
The Verdict: C.
Michael Bentley 11:28 AM
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