The Dead Zone (1983)

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HALLOWEEN REVIEWS 2021

Director: David Cronenberg

Writers: Jeffrey Boam, from the novel by Stephen King

Stars: Christopher Walken, Nicholas Campbell, Tom Skerritt, Martin Sheen, Brooke Adams, Herbert Lom



A school teacher (Christopher Walken) tries to put his life back together and find a use for the psychic gifts he possesses after awakening from a five-year coma. 



As much as I like Stephen King, David Cronenberg, and Christopher Walken, I should have liked this movie more.

 


It had a rote quality to it, as if it were an exercise in storytelling instead of a story organically unfolding before us. 



The film covers a lot of time, so maybe it was the combination of an overreliance on coincidence and the exaggeration of characters’ qualities to establish them quickly that feels so artificial.

 


The film really comes alive in the middle portion with Frank Dodd (Nicholas Campbell) and Sheriff Bannerman (Tom Skerritt).

 


I thought Martin Sheen’s portrayal of Greg Stillson was too over-the-top and cartoonish until Trump came along.


Spoiler alert!!! From the end of the movie!!

















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