The Dead Zone [DVD]

This review is for the US Shout factory collectors edition.There is an improvement in the picture quality especially in the darker scenes. Overall a worthwhile upgrade.Also there are 2 new extra features, a new interview with Brooke Adams and audio commentary from the director of photography Mark Irwin.You can also change the cover art to the original but I actually like the new art work.So it cost me £26 to have it delivered from the US but it was relatively quick, So if you have it already on Blu ray, I would still say get it if you love the film.

For the longest time I always got this movie mixed up with  Brainstorm , believing them to be one and the same. It's an easy mistake to make since they are both cerebral thrillers starring Christopher Walken that came out within a month of each other.Walken stars as Johnny Smith ('cause he's just a normal guy. But not everybody will get that. That's just for the scholars a hundred years from now) an ordinary school teacher with a loving girlfriend who is in a car accident one night and wakes up from a coma five years later with psychic abilities that he unwisely doesn't keep to himself and becomes a public spectacle. With his new powers he helps the police fight crime and prevents future disasters from happening. Though he's not very happy about it, especially as his girlfriend effed-off to be with someone else.If any of you have seen Medium with Patricia Arquette then this will hardly seem new or exciting to you. However, Walken is always captivating and I'd pay good money just to watch him read the dictionary, or even Twilight. Strange to think that Stephen King wanted Bill Murray for the role. My big problem with the movie is that there just isn't much plot, which is fine as it doesn't have to be a traditionally-driven narrative. I don't mind watching Walken discover new abilities and help people in trouble, it just builds to a bit of an unsatisfying climax. It's especially frustrating as David Cronenberg is known for his disturbing body-shock movies and The Dead Zone just seems a bit tepid in comparison to his other work. The car crash at the beginning is also rather unspectacular and hardly the kind of thing that would result in a five-year slumber. Cronenberg has not made a career out of long movies, but at 103 minutes it's just too thin. I know he filibusters and waffles a lot, but Stephen King's novel ran well over 100,000 words so there was clearly enough literary material to work from.I do enjoy the cinematography by Mark Irwin, who went on to shoot RoboCop 2 and Scream. There's a lot of cold, wintry atmosphere to The Dead Zone, and it's all done in-camera, giving it a real, earthy feel. If this were made in current year it would all be done against a green screen with excessive filtering and it would look terrible. How I miss old-school filmmaking.What is rather odd about this movie, especially considering the subject matter, is that Walken, in more than one scene, recommends reading The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, a movie he would later star in as The Horseman. Martin Sheen's character also makes a prediction that he will become president, which he did, to great acclaim, in the TV show The West Wing.But there's something else lurking in the background, perhaps some intentional psychological trickery by David Cronenberg. In three different scenes/locations there is a picture of a sailboat. In the movie Brainstorm Walken starred alongside Natalie Wood, an actress who mysteriously drowned in the Pacific off the coast of Catalina in 1981 in circumstances that are still not fully understood to this day, though her husband Robert Wagner took a lot of heat for this apparent accident.Who was their guest on that yacht the night she died? Christopher Walken.Am I reading too much into this?A decent thriller, and a subdued effort from Cronenberg considering the source material.

I read The Dead Zone when I was a child and the story stuck in my head BUT I couldn't remember the name of the book or who it was by and didn't know there was a movie version until I found it on Amazon and watched it last night. I was not disappointed. Christopher Walken was perfect as the main character, such a great actor, gosh he looked young though, really made me feel my age.

Five stars for gripping horror / drama.Based on the Stephen King novel, this film is one of my all time favourites. Christopher Walken gives a brilliantly moving portrayal of a man (Johnny Smith) who loses 5 years of his life to a coma and wakes in a specialist institute to discover he's gained psychic powers but lost his fiancée to another man.I first saw this film in the eighties and Walken's acting skills blew me away; he gets so deep into the character's experiences that I feel what he was going through; the moment he discovers he's lost his girl, the fear, frustration and anger he feels about the power he's gained, the cruel media guy who calls him a freak which results in the death of his mum, the way his now married ex turns up, uses him and 'discards' him again (boy was I angry with her for treating him so mean), Walken's relationship with his screen parents which is incredibly moving and personal - I can't watch this film without my heart breaking for Johnny Smith.Add to that sterling performances from the actors who play his parents, Tom Skerrit as the desperate sheriff trying to solve a speight of sex murders, Herbet Lom as his concerned, compassionate doctor and Martin Sheen as the dangerously ambitious wannabe senator - result - incredibly entertaining and heart wrenching film. I've watched it more times than I've had hot dinners. It never bores - and I always cry my heart out. IMO a must have for one's DVD collection.Recommended to anyone who enjoys anything to do with the occult / a gripping story.

I remember seeing this when I was young, and enjoying it immensely. It stars an unmannered Christopher Walken as a man who comes out of a coma to discover he can see into some people's future when he touches them. This leads him to help a number of people with this new skill, before the denouement of the film, where he can be argued that he helps a great many people with one final action.As I said, I enjoyed it when I was young, but having rewatched it, it is more slow paced than I remember. I still enjoyed it, and think it is one of the better adaptations of Stephen King's work. I think you'll enjoy it too, if you like slow build films.