| Revision as of 14:37, 14 May 2020 edit73.159.61.61 (talk) →Plot← Previous edit | Revision as of 04:26, 21 May 2020 edit undo2605:e000:1525:c6d4:b0f0:ee10:9b59:52f8 (talk) →PlotNext edit → | ||
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| In the town of ], ], John Smith, a young schoolteacher, is in love with his colleague Sarah Bracknell. After having a headache following a ride on a roller coaster, Johnny politely declines when Sarah asks if he wants to spend the night with her. As he drives home through stormy weather, he has a car accident that leaves him in a coma. He awakens under the care of neurologist Dr. Sam Weizak. He finds that five years have passed, and that Sarah is now married and has a child. | In the town of ], ], John Smith, a young schoolteacher, is in love with his colleague Sarah Bracknell. After having a headache following a ride on a roller coaster, Johnny politely declines when Sarah asks if he wants to spend the night with her. As he drives home through stormy weather, he has a car accident that leaves him in a coma. He awakens under the care of neurologist Dr. Sam Weizak. He finds that five years have passed, and that Sarah is now married and has a child. | ||
| Johnny soon discovers that he now has the psychic ability to learn aspects of a person's life through physical contact with them. As he touches a nurse's hand, he has a vision of her daughter trapped in a fire. He also sees that Weizak's mother, long thought to have died during ], is still alive, and that a reporter's sister killed herself. Johnny's mother has a heart attack and dies after being visited by Johnny in the hospital. | Johnny soon discovers that he now has the psychic ability to learn aspects of a person's life through physical contact with them. As he touches a nurse's hand, he has a vision of her daughter trapped in a fire. He also sees that Weizak's mother, long thought to have died during ], is still alive, and that a pushy reporter's sister killed herself. Johnny's mother has a heart attack and dies after being visited by Johnny in the hospital. | ||
| As news of his "gift" spreads, Johnny is asked by Sheriff George Bannerman for help with a series of murders, but he wishes to be left alone and therefore declines. Sarah visits with her infant son and she and Johnny consummate their relationship, |
As news of his "gift" spreads, Johnny is asked by Sheriff George Bannerman for help with a series of murders, but he wishes to be left alone and therefore declines. Sarah visits with her infant son and she and Johnny consummate their relationship but, when he asks her as she is leaving "am I gonna see you again?", she replies "Not like today." | ||
| Having a change of heart, Johnny agrees to help Bannerman and, through a vision at the crime scene, he discovers that Bannerman's deputy Frank Dodd is the killer. Before they can arrest him, Dodd kills himself. Johnny is then shot by Dodd's mother, who in turn is killed by Bannerman. | Having a change of heart about the murders, Johnny agrees to help Bannerman and, through a vision at the crime scene, he discovers that Bannerman's deputy Frank Dodd is the killer. Before they can arrest him, Dodd kills himself. Johnny is then shot by Dodd's mother, who in turn is killed by Bannerman. | ||
| A disillusioned Johnny, now barely able to walk, moves away and attempts to live a more isolated life. He takes on tutoring jobs for children, working from home until a wealthy man named Roger Stuart implores him to come visit and tutor his son, Chris. They form a friendship, but Johnny soon receives a vision of Chris and two other boys falling |
A disillusioned Johnny, now barely able to walk, moves away and attempts to live a more isolated life. He takes on tutoring jobs for children, working from home until a wealthy man named Roger Stuart implores him to come visit and tutor his son, Chris. They form a friendship, but Johnny soon receives a vision of Chris and two other boys falling through the ice of a local pond and drowning due to wearing heavy hockey equipment during a practice. He implores Stuart, who organized and financed the team, to cancel the practice before smashing a vase with his cane to make his point and getting terminated from tutoring Chris as a result. | ||
| Despite Stuart's skepticism, Chris believes Johnny and stays home from the |
Despite Stuart's skepticism, Chris believes Johnny and stays home from the practice. The other two boys indeed fall through the ice and drown, much to Stuart's shock. Johnny then realizes he has a "dead zone" in his visions, where the future is not set, and he can actually change it. | ||
| Johnny attends a rally for Greg Stillson, a superficially charismatic ] candidate for the ], for whom Sarah and her husband volunteer. (Stillson is, in actuality, a ruthless demagogue.) Johnny shakes Stillson's hand and has a vision of him becoming president and ordering a ] against the ] that results in a ]. | Johnny attends a rally for Greg Stillson, a superficially charismatic ] candidate for the ], for whom Sarah and her husband volunteer. (Stillson is, in actuality, a ruthless demagogue.) Johnny shakes Stillson's hand and has a vision of him becoming president and ordering a ] against the ] that results in a ]. | ||
Revision as of 04:26, 21 May 2020
1983 American film| The Dead Zone | |
|---|---|
 Theatrical release poster | |
| Directed by | David Cronenberg |
| Screenplay by | Jeffrey Boam |
| Produced by | Debra Hill |
| Starring | |
| Cinematography | Mark Irwin |
| Edited by | Ronald Sanders |
| Music by | Michael Kamen |
| Production company | Dino De Laurentiis Company |
| Distributed by | Paramount Pictures (North America) De Laurentiis Entertainment Group (International) |
| Release date |
|
| Running time | 103 minutes |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $7.1 million or $10 million |
| Box office | $16.3 million or $20.8 million |
The Dead Zone is a 1983 American horror thriller film directed by David Cronenberg. The screenplay, by Jeffrey Boam, is based on the 1979 novel of the same name by Stephen King. The film stars Christopher Walken, Brooke Adams, Tom Skerritt, Herbert Lom, Martin Sheen, Anthony Zerbe and Colleen Dewhurst. Walken plays a schoolteacher, Johnny Smith, who awakens from a coma to find he has psychic powers. The film received positive reviews and became the basis for a television series of the same name in the early 2000s, starring Anthony Michael Hall.
Plot
In the town of Castle Rock, New Hampshire, John Smith, a young schoolteacher, is in love with his colleague Sarah Bracknell. After having a headache following a ride on a roller coaster, Johnny politely declines when Sarah asks if he wants to spend the night with her. As he drives home through stormy weather, he has a car accident that leaves him in a coma. He awakens under the care of neurologist Dr. Sam Weizak. He finds that five years have passed, and that Sarah is now married and has a child.
Johnny soon discovers that he now has the psychic ability to learn aspects of a person's life through physical contact with them. As he touches a nurse's hand, he has a vision of her daughter trapped in a fire. He also sees that Weizak's mother, long thought to have died during World War II, is still alive, and that a pushy reporter's sister killed herself. Johnny's mother has a heart attack and dies after being visited by Johnny in the hospital.
As news of his "gift" spreads, Johnny is asked by Sheriff George Bannerman for help with a series of murders, but he wishes to be left alone and therefore declines. Sarah visits with her infant son and she and Johnny consummate their relationship but, when he asks her as she is leaving "am I gonna see you again?", she replies "Not like today."
Having a change of heart about the murders, Johnny agrees to help Bannerman and, through a vision at the crime scene, he discovers that Bannerman's deputy Frank Dodd is the killer. Before they can arrest him, Dodd kills himself. Johnny is then shot by Dodd's mother, who in turn is killed by Bannerman.
A disillusioned Johnny, now barely able to walk, moves away and attempts to live a more isolated life. He takes on tutoring jobs for children, working from home until a wealthy man named Roger Stuart implores him to come visit and tutor his son, Chris. They form a friendship, but Johnny soon receives a vision of Chris and two other boys falling through the ice of a local pond and drowning due to wearing heavy hockey equipment during a practice. He implores Stuart, who organized and financed the team, to cancel the practice before smashing a vase with his cane to make his point and getting terminated from tutoring Chris as a result.
Despite Stuart's skepticism, Chris believes Johnny and stays home from the practice. The other two boys indeed fall through the ice and drown, much to Stuart's shock. Johnny then realizes he has a "dead zone" in his visions, where the future is not set, and he can actually change it.
Johnny attends a rally for Greg Stillson, a superficially charismatic third-party candidate for the United States Senate, for whom Sarah and her husband volunteer. (Stillson is, in actuality, a ruthless demagogue.) Johnny shakes Stillson's hand and has a vision of him becoming president and ordering a preemptive nuclear strike against the Soviet Union that results in a nuclear holocaust.
Johnny seeks out Weizak's advice, asking, by way of example, if he would have killed Adolf Hitler if he had the chance, knowing in advance the atrocities Hitler would commit. Weizak replies that he would have had no choice but to kill him. Johnny leaves Sarah a letter, telling her that what he is about to do will cost him his life, but that it will be a sacrifice he is willing to make.
Johnny loads a rifle and takes aim at Stillson at a rally, with Sarah in the audience. His shot misses the target, but Stillson grabs Sarah's baby and holds him as a human shield. When this happens, Johnny refuses to risk hitting the child. In that moment, a photographer snaps a picture of Stillson holding the baby.
After Sarah finally gets her baby back, and before Johnny attempts to fire again, he is shot by Stillson's bodyguard. Confronted by an angry Stillson, Johnny grabs his hand to see into his future. He now foresees Stillson's reputation and political ambitions being ruined; after the photograph of his cowardly act is published, Stillson will commit suicide.
Johnny lies dying, satisfied that Stillson's career is forever destroyed and the nuclear war he would have incited will not occur. Sarah embraces Johnny and tells him she loves him as he dies.
Cast
- Christopher Walken as Johnny Smith
- Brooke Adams as Sarah Bracknell
- Tom Skerritt as Sheriff George Bannerman
- Herbert Lom as Dr. Sam Weizak
- Anthony Zerbe as Roger Stuart
- Colleen Dewhurst as Henrietta Dodd
- Martin Sheen as Greg Stillson
- Nicholas Campbell as Deputy Frank Dodd
- Simon Craig as Chris Stuart
- Géza Kovács as Sonny
Production
Development
As King's novel The Dead Zone was released in 1979, Lorimar Film Entertainment began developing a film adaptation. Producer Carol Baum gave the book to screenwriter Jeffrey Boam and asked him to write a screenplay. "I saw it had great possibilities and agreed to do it," Boam said. He developed a script with director Stanley Donen, who left the project before the film had reached production at Lorimar. Lorimar eventually closed its film division after a series of box office failures, and soon after, producer Dino De Laurentiis bought the rights to The Dead Zone. He initially disliked Boam's screenplay and asked King to adapt his own novel. De Laurentiis then reportedly rejected King's script as "involved and convoluted"; however, David Cronenberg, who ultimately directed the film, said that he was the one who decided not to use the script, finding it "needlessly brutal". De Laurentiis rejected a second script by Andrei Konchalovsky, eventually returning to Boam. The film was finally on track to be made when De Laurentiis hired producer Debra Hill to work with Cronenberg and Boam.
Boam abandoned King's parallel story structure for The Dead Zone's screenplay, turning the plot into separate episodes. Boam told writer Tim Lucas in 1983, "King's book is longer than it needed to be. The novel sprawls and it's episodic. What I did was use that episodic quality, because I saw The Dead Zone as a triptych." His script was revised and condensed four times by Cronenberg, who eliminated large portions of the novel's story, including plot points about Johnny Smith having a brain tumor. Cronenberg, Boam, and Hill had script meetings to revise the screenplay page by page. Boam's "triptych" in the screenplay surrounds three acts: the introduction of Johnny Smith before his car accident and after he awakes from a coma, a story about Smith assisting a sheriff in tracking down the Castle Rock Killer, and finally Johnny deciding to confront the politician Stillson. Boam said that he enjoyed writing character development for Smith, having him struggle with the responsibility of his psychic abilities, and ultimately giving up his life for the greater good. "It was this theme that made me like the book, and I particularly enjoyed discovering it in what was essentially a genre piece, a work of exploitation," he said. In Boam's first draft of the screenplay, Johnny does not die at the end, but rather has a vision about the Castle Rock Killer, who is still alive and escaped from prison. Cronenberg insisted that this "trick ending" be revised. Boam submitted the final draft of the screenplay on November 8, 1982.
King is reported to have told Cronenberg that the changes the director and Boam made to the story "improved and intensified the power of the narrative."
Before Christopher Walken was cast as Johnny Smith, Bill Murray was considered for the role as it was King's first choice. Cronenberg initially wanted Nicholas Campbell to portray Johnny, but the director wound up casting him as the Castle Rock Killer instead. Cronenberg also wanted Hal Holbrook to portray Sheriff Bannerman but De Laurentiis objected.
In addition to Donen, both John Badham and Michael Cimino were also considered to direct.
Filming
Shooting started in early January 1983 and took place in the Greater Toronto Area and the Regional Municipality of Niagara of Cronenberg's native Ontario, Canada. The so-called Screaming Tunnel, located in nearby Niagara Falls, Ontario, was also used as the backdrop for one scene. The gazebo was built by the film crew and donated to Niagara-on-the-Lake.
According to a David Cronenberg interview on the DVD, The Dead Zone was filmed during a relentless deep freeze in southern Ontario which lasted for weeks, creating an authentic atmosphere of subzero temperatures and icy snow-packed terrain, which made for great natural shooting locations, in spite of it being almost too cold for cast and crew to tolerate at times. Canada's Wonderland, a theme park which is 30 km north of Toronto's city limits, was also used as a filming location.
Music
The music soundtrack, composed by Michael Kamen, was recorded by The National Philharmonic Orchestra, London at the famous EMI Abbey Road Studios. Michael Kamen conducted the recording sessions; the orchestra was contracted and led by Sidney Sax. This is the only Cronenberg film since The Brood (1979) for which Howard Shore was not composer.
Reception
 | This section needs expansion. You can help by adding to it. (October 2014) |
The Dead Zone received very positive reviews on release. It holds a 91% approval rating on review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, which catalogs both contemporary and modern reviews from 43 critics. The site's consensus reads, "The Dead Zone combines taut direction from David Cronenberg and a rich performance from Christopher Walken to create one of the strongest Stephen King adaptations".
Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times gave the film three-and-a-half stars, describing The Dead Zone as by far the best of the half-a-dozen cinematic adaptations of King's novels to that date. He praised Cronenberg's direction for successfully weaving the supernatural into the everyday, and noted believable performances by the entire cast, especially Walken: "Walken does such a good job of portraying Johnny Smith, the man with the strange gift, that we forget this is science fiction or fantasy or whatever and just accept it as this guy's story." Janet Maslin of The New York Times referred to the film as "a well-acted drama more eerie than terrifying, more rooted in the occult than in sheer horror."
See also
- List of American films of 1983
- The Dead Zone (TV series), a television series also based on the novel.
- "The Ned Zone", a segment of The Simpsons' "Treehouse of Horror XV" episode that parodies the novel and film.
- "Ed Glosser, Trivial Psychic", a Saturday Night Live sketch featuring Christopher Walken that parodies the film.
References
- ^ "The Dead Zone (1983)". AFI Catalog of Feature Films. Retrieved 2018-01-19.
- ^ De Laurentiis PRODUCER'S PICTURE DARKENS: KNOEDELSEDER, WILLIAM K, Jr. Los Angeles Times 30 Aug 1987: 1.
- "The Dead Zone". Box Office Mojo. Retrieved 2018-01-19.
- ^ Lucas, Tim (Dec 1983 – Jan 1984). "The Dead Zone". Cinefantastique. 14 (2): 24–35.
- Ferrante, A.C. (May 1, 2013). "Exclusive Interview: The Last Crusade of Screenwriter Jeffrey Boam". Assignment X/EON Magazine. Midnight Productions, Inc.
- ^ Collings, Michael R. (2008-08-30). The Films of Stephen King. Borgo Press. p. 91. ISBN 0893709840.
- ^ Wiater, Stanley; Golden, Christopher; Wagner, Iank (May 2001). The Stephen King Universe: The Guide to the Worlds of the King of Horror. Renaissance Books. p. 139. ISBN 1580631606.
- Magistrate, Tony (2003). "Defining Heroic Codes of Survival". Hollywood's Stephen King. New York City: Palgrave MacMillan. p. 120. ISBN 0312293216.
- Locke, Greg W. (26 August 2011). "The Top 25 Roles Bill Murray Didn't Take". Archived from the original on 25 November 2011. Retrieved 25 May 2015.
- Evans, Bradford (17 February 2011). "The Lost Roles of Bill Murray". Archived from the original on 20 May 2015. Retrieved 25 May 2015.
- ^ Mell, Eila (2015). Casting Might-Have-Beens: A Film by Film Directory of Actors Considered for Roles Given to Others. McFarland. ISBN 9781476609768.pages 66-67
- Lambie, Ryan (21 February 2015). "Why The Dead Zone Is One of the Best Stephen King Films". Den of Geek. Retrieved 2 July 2019.
- Lucas, p. 24
- "The Dead Zone". Rotten Tomatoes. Retrieved 2014-02-01.
- Ebert, Roger (26 October 1983). "The Dead Zone". Chicago Sun-Times. Retrieved 14 September 2016.
- Maslin, Janet (21 October 1983). "FILM: 'DEAD ZONE,' FROM KING NOVEL". The New York Times. Retrieved 14 September 2016.
External links
- The Dead Zone at IMDb
- Template:Amg movie
- The Dead Zone at the TCM Movie Database
- The Dead Zone at Rotten Tomatoes
- The Dead Zone at Box Office Mojo
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| Related | |
- 1983 films
- 1983 horror films
- 1983 independent films
- 1980s psychological thriller films
- American supernatural horror films
- American films
- American independent films
- American political thriller films
- English-language films
- American supernatural thriller films
- Films about assassinations
- Films based on American horror novels
- Films based on American thriller novels
- Films based on works by Stephen King
- Films directed by David Cronenberg
- Films set in Maine
- Films shot in Ontario
- Paramount Pictures films
- Films scored by Michael Kamen
- Films produced by Dino De Laurentiis
- Films produced by Debra Hill
- Films about precognition
- Suicide in film