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." [29] 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." [30] Robin Wood stated that it was the first film by Cronenberg that he could admire and called it a "healthy development". [31] Like in the novel, Johnny Smith assists the sherrif in the solving of several rape-stranglings of various women. He is able to expose him as the serial killer. Before they can arrest him, he commits suicide.

Stillson, today the mayor of Ridgeway, nevertheless suffers from his psychological issues. Agree to “tear out” a buddy’s teenaged nephew for sporting an obscene t-shirt, he pops placing the top on fire and hammering the childhood using a broken bottle, threatening to kill him when he tells anyone about it.Having psychic power is a great super trope, be it with touch, senses, taking certain drugs to get in the right mood and mindset, feed on happiness, fear, or boredom, hey, that would be funny, controlling and brainwashing other people, etc. Easily combinable with time travel, alternative realities, fantasy, sci-fi in general, and fine to implement in any half or full breed real life events, not to forget innuendos and connotations. Most of Stephen King’s famous early novels have an iconic scene (Carrie at the prom), an iconic character (number 1 fan Annie Wilkes) or just a really simple hook (vampires; deserted creepy hotel; zombie pets; killer dog; killer car; killer clown etc… ) John felt an inordinate amount of pressure from his gift, which I thought serviced this book well. Rather than making him a superhero, his gift became more a question of mankind and morality. Stephen attended the grammar school in Durham and Lisbon Falls High School, graduating in 1966. From his sophomore year at the University of Maine at Orono, he wrote a weekly column for the school newspaper, THE MAINE CAMPUS. He was also active in student politics, serving as a member of the Student Senate. He came to support the anti-war movement on the Orono campus, arriving at his stance from a conservative view that the war in Vietnam was unconstitutional. He graduated in 1970, with a B.A. in English and qualified to teach on the high school level. A draft board examination immediately post-graduation found him 4-F on grounds of high blood pressure, limited vision, flat feet, and punctured eardrums. Sometime in early 2013, I resolved to read some of the Stephen King books I missed during my binge around the turn of the century. Along with The Shining and It, the Dead Zone is something I'm surprised I hadn't read years ago.

The FBI agent is killed by a car bomb. Meanwhile, Johnny's warnings that a disaster will occur at his pupil's graduation party are ignored by some, leading to several deaths. Now believing he must take more decisive action to prevent nuclear war, and learning his headaches are the result of a brain tumor, Johnny buys a rifle to kill Stillson. At the next rally, Stillson begins his speech and Johnny shoots from a balcony. He misses and is wounded by guards. Stillson grabs a young child and holds him up as a human shield. A bystander photographs Stillson's act. Unable to shoot a child, Johnny is shot twice by the bodyguards. He falls off the balcony, mortally wounded. Dying, Johnny touches Stillson a final time. He feels only dwindling impressions but knows the terrible future has been prevented. When published, the picture of Stillson using a child as a shield ends his political career. THE DEAD ZONE was my very first Stephen King book, and I would like to thank David Cronenberg, Christopher Walken, and one of my high school best friends- Natalie Kowalski- for introducing me to the world of John Smith, and in turn the world of Stephen King.Anyway that’s just my opinion and I guess most wouldn’t wholeheartedly agree with it but it’s my Stephen King trip and that’s how I see it. a b KNOEDELSEDER, WILLIAM K Jr (August 30, 1987). "De Laurentiis PRODUCER'S PICTURE DARKENS". Los Angeles Times. Note: If interested, you can listen to an online interview clip with James Franco about the audiobook experience HERE. A film adaptation of The Dead Zone was released in 1983, starring Christopher Walken, and directed by David Cronenberg. The Dead Zone sort of explores Stephen King’s development as a skilled author, in this book he shows that his characters are becoming more deeply fleshed out than previous works but in my opinion he loses his way with the story a little, concentrating more on one aspect of the story and dropping the ball in others.

The Dead Zone is a horror/supernatural thriller novel by Stephen King published in 1979. It concerns Johnny Smith, who is injured in an accident and remains in a coma for nearly five years. Upon emergence, he exhibits clairvoyance and precognition with limitations, apparently because of a "dead zone," an area of his brain that suffered permanent damage as the result of his accident.The cast are on point and Lom who is famous for his villianous characters (Pink Panther for example) is highly likeable and steals every scene he's in. Stephen King’s The Dead Zone would have made a perfectly snappy short story or novella: A man gets into a car accident, slips into a coma, wakes up five years later, and can foresee a person’s future by touching them. He runs into an ascendant politician, realizes the man is a mortal danger to the nation, and sets out to stop him. The climax sets you up to expect one thing, then delivers another. The Dead Zone was the strangest experience of my rereading experiment thus far. It's the first book that is totally different to my memories of it; to the point where I even doubted that I had read it, and hadn't just watched the (admittedly excellent) David Cronenberg movie adaptation too much. I had read it, though – I still have the original copy to prove it – but it had slipped from my mind almost completely. (Into the dead zone?) Why? Maybe because, structurally, it's easily the strangest book King had, until this point, attempted to write; and maybe because, unlike other King (not Bachman) novels of the time, it doesn't really have a bad guy to focus on and drive the narrative. Not that it's any the worse for that, mind you … Kehr, Dave (October 26, 1985). "The Dead Zone". Chicago Reader. Archived from the original on July 22, 2010 . Retrieved August 15, 2021.

By 1970, Johnny is a high school teacher in the small town of Cleaves Mills, Maine with a new girlfriend named Sarah. After winning repeatedly at a carnival wheel of fortune, Johnny is involved in a car accident and falls into a coma. Waking up over four years later, Johnny finds that he has suffered a neural injury, with one part of his brain seriously damaged, making it a "dead zone." As if to compensate, other parts of the brain now show heightened activity. As a result, Johnny sometimes experiences clairvoyant visions when touching people and objects. His mother, who has become fanatically religious during the period of Johnny's coma, insists that he has been given a holy mission which he must not decline; she soon dies of a stroke. As news of his gift spreads, Sheriff George Bannerman asks Johnny for help with a series of murders. At first Johnny declines, but he eventually agrees to help. Through a vision at the crime scene, he discovers that deputy Frank Dodd is the killer. Before Bannerman can arrest him, Dodd commits suicide. Dodd's mother shoots Johnny before being killed by Bannerman. Tampoco donde veremos al villano haciendo y deshaciendo en muchas páginas, como en otras obras de King, que lo profundiza más. The book The Dead Zone shares similarities with the Netflix series Stranger Things. It is confirmed in the book Stranger Things: Worlds Turned Upside Down that The Duffer Brothers took inspiration from The Dead Zone, along with the books Firestarter, Carrie, The Body, The Shining and It But it did make me a little sad at the end it’s about the only King novel I have read that I have wished for a happy ending!

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Sarah's husband Walt and the character of Sheriff George Bannerman were combined for the TV show into a new character Walt Bannerman, who marries Sarah during Johnny's coma and is the local sheriff. Walt regularly works with Johnny, the two combining police resources and psychic visions to solve many cases. While in the book, Sarah and Johnny only share a kiss before his coma, the TV series depicts them as childhood friends who then become long time lovers and conceive a child before Johnny's accident. When Johnny awakens from his coma, he learns he and Sarah have a son, Johnny or "JJ", who is being raised by her and Walt. Among the supporting cast, Johnny's physical therapist Bruce becomes his best friend and most trusted aid during his adventures and his eventual investigation of Stillson. A season 2 episode reveals that if Johnny and Bruce had never met, then Johnny would have become an isolated loner who dies while attempting to assassinate Stillson at a rally, just as occurred in the book. When Johnny comes out of his coma, he has the ability/curse of being able to touch someone or something owned by that person (psychometry) and see pieces of their future. Some key elements always seem to be missing, and those murky parts Johnny calls The Dead Zone. The Dead Zone is more of a drama than a horror, with some science fiction elements thrown in, but what is truly terrifying are the parallels that can be drawn between Greg Stillson, the politician that Johnny forsees causing a nuclear war, and Donald Trump. The similarities are so eerie! King MUST have some some Johnny Smith powers of this own! Greg Stillson is currently the proprietor of an insurance and real estate broker in Ridgeway, New Hampshire. Flush with victory–he’s a pure salesman–he’s becoming a powerful figure in the area, and begins to look at running for mayor. An eccentric biker called Sonny Elliman drops in with Stillson and finally becomes his safety adviser and all-around dirty-deed-doer. The last chapter, "Notes from the Dead Zone", is one of the most beautiful passages of prose in my experience. Stephen King rises almost to the level of a poet here, the way the words flow.