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| Christopher Walken as a less kind, less gentle Johnny Smith |
Despite my love for the works of David Cronenberg, for a long time 1983's The Dead Zone didn't really register on my radar. I'd seen it when I was a kid, and had it filed away in my brain under "above average Stephen King adaptations." Given the vast quantity of films based on King's work, that's a file that doesn't exactly beg for reevaluation. But Cronenberg is a director, like Stanley Kubrick before him, who excels at the peculiar skill of telling other people's stories in a way that enhances rather than diminishes his own authorial voice. (Indeed, of the twelve films Cronenberg has made from The Dead Zone through next year's Cosmopolis, only two are based on original screenplays.) And so, far from being just another Stephen King adaptation, The Dead Zone is an essential step in Cronenberg's filmography that sheds light on the obsessions and perspectives that propel his work.
