The Dead Zone (1983, David Cronenberg) (Patreon)

53/100

Spoilers ahoy.

Second viewing, last seen sometime during Reagan's second term. I phrase it that way in part because King's novel, published in 1979, is very much a product of its time, which is not at all true of the film (made just four years later)—it's as if someone wrote a story in which the protagonist awakens from a five-year coma at this historical moment, and the film adaptation never once mentions Trump, the coronavirus, Black Lives Matter, etc. The Dead Zone as originally conceived isn't about Vietnam and Watergate, but it's absolutely informed by them, right down to making its Big Bad an evil future president; stripping away all of that context in order to focus on the supernatural element was just fundamentally misguided, in pretty much the same way that most King adaptations (including, cough cough, INCOMING HIGHLY UNPOPULAR OPINION, The Shining) are fundamentally misguided. I assert this not as a particularly ardent Stephen King fan (though I like many of the early novels and think his admittedly clunky prose style has obscured his talent for many lit crix), but as someone who thinks the vast majority of books should remain on the page. Jeffrey Boam's screenplay also has huge structural issues: While it was probably wise to ditch the novel's parallel portraits of Johnny and Stillson—the latter is introduced immediately in the book and explored in great nauseating detail, whereas more than an hour elapses before we see Martin Sheen (apart from the occasional campaign photo)—Boam never really came up with a viable alternative. As a result, the film is weirdly episodic, playing a bit like The Continuing Adventures of a Reluctant Cassandra. Each sequence is self-contained: Johnny catches a serial killer; Johnny foresees a hockey disaster; should Johnny assassinate American Hitler? All of them pretty solid, but nothing ever builds. It's frustrating.

(Also, and this drives me crazy, the film completely and pointlessly alters the meaning of its title. In the book, Johnny's "dead zone" relates to a brain tumor—cut from the film, though for some reason his headaches remain—and consists of an inability to form mental images of random specific objects, like a picnic table or a rowboat. This prevents him from clearly seeing what will happen with Stillson, and contributes enormously to his uncertainty regarding whether and how to act. He ultimately dies knowing that he averted World War III but not understanding how, given that his shots all missed, which is quite poignant. The movie, by contrast, barely mentions the dead zone at all, making it some nonsensical gobbledygook about Johnny's potential to change the course of events that he foresees. This is especially bizarre given that the film's superb opening-title sequence visually approximates the concept of a mysteriously obstructed view.)

Now, I understand why most people disagree with me about The Shining (which I gave exactly the same rating). Its formal magnificence, for me, gets undermined by Nicholson's miscasting, but if you don't think he's the worst possible actor to play Jack Torrance, or simply don't mind the deleterious effect of his crazy-Jack baggage, there's a first-rate Stanley Kubrick film awaiting you. The Dead Zone, on the other hand, doesn't strike me as first-rate Cronenberg even if I look past my script issues. He keeps Walken's mannerisms in check (or maybe those just hadn't yet taken hold in '83; it's been a while since I last saw The Deer Hunter or Heaven's Gate), and excels as always with foreboding establishing shots that make ordinary buildings look immensely creepy. And I very much like the way he places Johnny in the midst of certain visions, so that e.g. his hospital bed merges with the little girl's room that's on fire. That approach isn't consistent, though—sometimes we just see whatever Johnny sees, without his physical presence—and most of the film feels comparatively banal, indistinguishable from, say, Lewis Teague's work on Cujo or Rob Reiner's on Misery. In particular, it's hard to understand how the same person who directed The Dead Zone's multiple lackluster scenes between Walken and Brooke Adams—Johnny and Sarah's duet of regret utterly fizzles onscreen, despite Boam's effort to make her more prominent by having her stump for Stillson and making her son the climactic human shield—how that guy,  just three years later, effortlessly coaxed deathless tragic romanticism from Jeff Goldblum and Geena Davis. This is by no means a bad film, but if you can't see how much richer The Fly is in every possible respect, I submit that you suffer from a dead zone, as originally defined, of your own.