‘You… you’re a devil, sent from Hell!‘
For a film about a man with the gift of second sight, The Dead Zone is eerily prescient. Not only does it see Christopher Walken talking about Sleepy Hollow and the headless horseman a full 16 years before he ended up playing that very character, but it also sees Martin Sheen playing a politician, albeit a very different politician from the one he would go on to play on The West Wing. Spooky…
Following a terrible car crash, Johnny Smith (Walken) wakes up from a coma to find that his sweetheart Sarah (Brooke Adams) has married someone else, and that he has developed the ability to see into the future. But at what cost Lois? At what cost?
This is a horror film with a lot of pedigree, chum. David Cronenberg behind the camera, Walken and Sheen in front of it, and all based on a book by Stephen King. These disparate elements come together to form one of the most underrated horror films of the ’80s. At a time when the slasher craze was in full swing, The Dead Zone is something a little more intelligent, a little more sophisticated. Walken is wonderful in a rare leading role, veering from mild mannered teacher to raving lunatic, often within a single scene. Herbert Lom does a great job also as Walken’s doctor and mentor Sam Weizak, and Cronenberg reigns in his more grotesque tendencies to produce perhaps his most focused and streamlined horror film. He does manage to include a scene in which someone impales himself on a pair of scissors, but then this wouldn’t be a Cronenberg movie without a bloody slice of body horror somewhere along the line, he has become a verb after all.
The Dead Zone is a chilling, compelling film that features a successful volta in the third act that keeps the action moving throughout the 103 minute running time. One of Cronenberg’s best films and one of the best horror thrillers of the ’80s.