6. The Dead Zone
(David Cronenberg, 1983)
He was alone now, walking down this gloomy and deserted hall of shadows. And it began to seem to him that it wasn't an illusion or a mirage or a dream - at least not of the ordinary kind.
The Long and Short of It
Johnny Smith (Christopher Walken) just woke up from a coma, and things have changed. Not only because he lost five years, and not only because his girlfriend (Brooke Adams) married someone else...but because, now, Johnny can see the future.
Adaptation Decay
Significant but Honorable. Compacting King's novel forces some severe cuts, but Cronenberg and scripter Jeffrey Boam make it work. For example, Johnny Smith originally showed some precognitive power as a young man, during a game of ice hockey. In the film, this is scrapped and reworked into a later premonition when Johnny warns one of his students of an impending hockey disaster: "The ice...is gonna break!" The book moves Johnny to Phoenix for the ending, while the movie keeps everything in Maine and squeezes Johnny's love, Sarah Bracknell, into the climax. There are other changes, but the most interesting is that Greg Stillson (Martin Sheen) is withheld, appearing over an hour into the film. King showed Stillson early and often in the novel, but the film keeps him out of view, which has the intriguing effect of making him more obstacle than villain, the last of a series of threshold guardians; in the film, Johnny's real enemy is his power.
Forget All That - How's the Movie?
Gradually affecting. King's Johnny Smith was a regular, all-American man, and this film was made in the days of The Deer Hunter and Brainstorm, when Christopher Walken could unironically play a hero. Walken's outbursts are predictably satisfying, given his cadence, but it's when Johnny's withdrawn and lonely that the film finds its soul. Most of the other actors key off that tone, while Martin Sheen rightly overplays Stillson as a self-deifying nightmare; in a smart parallel to Johnny, Stillson speaks of his own "visions". What makes the film work, and what makes it honor King, is that David Cronenberg lets the supernatural elements emerge instead of impose. The visions rely on staging and cutting instead of flashy effects, and the low reality of Johnny's wintry surroundings (shot expertly by Cronenberg collaborator Mark Irwin) allow the fantasy elements to feel truly otherworldly. The best King stories are sly, hinting at all the boogeymen bubbling beneath Norman Rockwell's America. The Dead Zone nails that tension.
Alright, but Is It a Good Halloween Flick?
Not really. If you're 'thonning Cronenberg, sure, but even then, this lacks the spikier, punk-rock energy of flicks like Scanners and Videodrome.
Kingwatch 2012
This is the second Stephen King film to take place in Castle Rock, which previously housed a rabid St. Bernard, and would eventually be home to four kids looking for a body, a ghostly pen-name, a supernatural dog, and an ominous shop of antiquities.
But You Know What Sucks?
6. The Mangler
(Tobe Hooper, 1995)
Tobe Hooper's version of a story about a demonic laundry press (that's right) is as good as a story about a demonic laundry press can be, so it sucks pretty hard. A detective and his hippy friend investigate the deaths at a laundry, and meanwhile the laundry owner (Robert Englund) pervs his way from one virginal laundry worker to the next, and when they're eaten by the press, he leans on his crutches and gnashes his teeth and that's about it for him. Meanwhile, the hippy talks endlessly about an herb called Hand of Glory, and how bad it would be if the laundry machine demon ate Hand of Glory, and thank God it hasn't consumed Hand of Glory, because, and I quote, "If this thing ate some Hand of Glory, we'd be in for some profoundly shitty special effects." Sure, nobody has high expectations about a flick about a demonic laundry press (seriously), but somehow The Mangler still fails to meet those expectations. I guess that's some kind of achievement.
A Stephen King Halloween
01. ?
02. ?
03. ?
04. ?
05. Stand By Me / Dreamcatcher
06. The Dead Zone / The Mangler
07. Misery / Sometimes They Come Back
08. The Mist / Firestarter
09. "Battleground" / Creepshow 2
10. Creepshow / "The Road Virus Heads North"
11. Dolores Claiborne / The Tommyknockers (TV)
12. The Stand (TV) / Maximum Overdrive
13. 1408 / The Lawnmower Man
14. Christine / Silver Bullet
15. Cat's Eye / Thinner
HM. Hearts in Atlantis / The Shining (TV)
A Stephen King Halloween
01. ?
02. ?
03. ?
04. ?
05. Stand By Me / Dreamcatcher
06. The Dead Zone / The Mangler
07. Misery / Sometimes They Come Back
08. The Mist / Firestarter
09. "Battleground" / Creepshow 2
10. Creepshow / "The Road Virus Heads North"
11. Dolores Claiborne / The Tommyknockers (TV)
12. The Stand (TV) / Maximum Overdrive
13. 1408 / The Lawnmower Man
14. Christine / Silver Bullet
15. Cat's Eye / Thinner
HM. Hearts in Atlantis / The Shining (TV)
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