Okay (Christopher walker is this films saving grace aswell as Martin Sheen)
I wish I could write a review in Christopher walkens voice

Okay (Christopher walker is this films saving grace aswell as Martin Sheen)
I wish I could write a review in Christopher walkens voice

THE ICE IS GONNA BREAK

THE ICE IS GONNA BREAK

Maybe the most normal Cronenberg film.. and for that reason I have to dock half a star

Maybe the most normal Cronenberg film.. and for that reason I have to dock half a star

Never too upset about a pretty straight forward King-retelling but I was hoping this would have been a big more Cronenberg’ified

Never too upset about a pretty straight forward King-retelling but I was hoping this would have been a big more Cronenberg’ified

1983 | David Cronenberg | Stephen King | Christopher Walken | Brooke Adams | Tom Skerritt | Michael Sheen | Serial Killers | Book Adaptations

I loved reading Stephen King’s ‘The Dead Zone’, so I was looking forward to this adaptation a whole lot. A King novel adapted by Cronenberg almost sounded too crazy to be true. And while it could’ve gone the other way, this was a really good adaptation.

It’s pretty faithful to the source material and has all the key beats of the story, but as it reduces just over five hundred pages to just over one hundred minutes, it feels very disjointed and jumpy. Not necessarily in a negative way tho.

I loved the title card, the score is absolutely amazing in its haunting melancholia and the look and feel of the film is great. Walken is such an interesting choice for the main character too. Not a single person who read the book would tell you to cast Walken as Johnny Smith, but somehow it works. If I were to direct the adaptation of this with the knowledge of how well Walken does, I still wouldn’t cast him tho. He is really great, but still a bit removed from the books Johnny.

‘The Dead Zone’ is a great King adaptation that has its own identity while retaining the key story elements from the book.

1983 | David Cronenberg | Stephen King | Christopher Walken | Brooke Adams | Tom Skerritt | Michael Sheen | Serial Killers | Book Adaptations

I loved reading Stephen King’s ‘The Dead Zone’, so I was looking forward to this adaptation a whole lot. A King novel adapted by Cronenberg almost sounded too crazy to be true. And while it could’ve gone the other way, this was a really good adaptation.

It’s pretty faithful to the source material and has all the key beats of the story, but as it reduces just over five hundred pages to just over one hundred minutes, it feels very disjointed and jumpy. Not necessarily in a negative way tho.

I loved the title card, the score is absolutely amazing in its haunting melancholia and the look and feel of the film is great. Walken is such an interesting choice for the main character too. Not a single person who read the book would tell you to cast Walken as Johnny Smith, but somehow it works. If I were to direct the adaptation of this with the knowledge of how well Walken does, I still wouldn’t cast him tho. He is really great, but still a bit removed from the books Johnny.

‘The Dead Zone’ is a great King adaptation that has its own identity while retaining the key story elements from the book.