A mature, pensive thriller, The Dead Zone reminds us that the world keeps turning after our deaths; David Cronenberg communicates this verity--rather, the isolationism such a realization inspires--before a single line of dialogue is even uttered, through images one usually associates with unqualified loneliness: snow, country houses, infertile trees. Pooled with Michael Kamen's weeping score, this opening credits sequence captures the very essence of melancholia. Remarkably, Cronenberg is able to sustain this tone, and while the tragic weight of the piece is almost too much to bear, its narrative structure alone is incredibly satisfying.
Johnny (Christopher Walken, in an iconic role--his career best) awakens from five years of unconsciousness to find his life dismantled. His girlfriend (Brooke Adams) has married someone else, his teaching position has been refilled, and he has mysteriously acquired the power of second sight, which turns him into something of a media freak show on top of all that. He finds allies in his father and an inquisitive doctor (Herbert Lom), using his gift (or curse) sparingly, for each psychic vision shortens his lifespan.
The three major occurrences of his telepathic assistance flow seamlessly into the next. First, he helps track down a serial killer, whose victims date back to his comatose days; then he discovers a secret about the boy he is home-schooling; lastly, Greg Stillson (Martin Sheen), a presidential candidate who was mentioned in act one and formally introduced in act two becomes the focus of the third, as Johnny foretells Stillson's future crimes against humanity. One of the basic outline's major strengths is how quickly Johnny validates his abilities to the sceptics--stories of this nature often get bogged down in the convincing.
This adaptation of a romantic and supernatural Stephen King novel may not seem a comfortable fit for Cronenberg's biological sensibilities at first, despite the book's high body count. But Johnny's fortune is another of the afflictions that characterize the director's body of work; in interviews conducted by Chris Rodley, Cronenberg said that the transformations his protagonists undergo are metaphors for aging, which would explain their potency. Johnny, Seth Brundle, the Scanners, they all speak of mortality more than any literal parasite. "We've all got the disease--the disease of being finite," he told Rodley. "And consciousness is the original sin: consciousness of the inevitability of our death." That's why, the older I get, the greater Cronenberg's "disease" pictures sadden me; I am so emotionally vulnerable to The Dead Zone because I, too, am a fatalist, and a worrywart.
Yet Cronenberg understands it's not enough for us to acknowledge our shared destiny--we must also embrace it. This insight separates his tax shelter flicks from The Dead Zone and forward, signalling his growth as a filmmaker. Seth Brundle rationalizes his rapid genetic mutation in The Fly by hypothesizing that he may have been an insect who merely dreamt he was a man and is now waking up; without completely blowing this film's finale for you, Johnny attempts to alter history by committing a startlingly selfless act (until such time he has been no more noble than you or I would be under the same circumstances), though he understands that humankind will never fully grasp his positive contribution, should he succeed. Watching Johnny's conscience pervade through existential squalor uplifts us from The Dead Zone's empathetic visual gloom.
The Dead Zone looks as good as it ever will on Paramount's DVD release. Letterboxed at something around 1.85:1 (Cronenberg's films are usually preserved for the digital medium at 1.78:1, the 16x9 minimum), the anamorphically enhanced video displays concise contrast and shadow detail, while saturation is very realistically subdued. Print scars are few and far between, and grain is kept at bay even during those tricky to compress snow-capped scenes. This is one The Mountain's better remasters, and it couldn't have happened to a nicer movie.
The Dolby Digital 5.1 audio exhibits unexpected gusto whenever Johnny has a revelation, particularly in a WWII flashback, which has been Private Ryan-ized to accent the whizzing bullets and thunder of Nazi tanks. Kamen's music, his finest, is mono in nature but does express higher fidelity in six-track than on the Dolby Surround default mix. Although Cronenberg is not averse to providing commentaries, he didn't record one for this DVD. The best alternative anybody could come up with is The Dead Zone's dated trailer, however I must highlight the redesigned cover as a plus: this is that rare instance in which the original poster art has been scrapped for the better.
David Cronenberg's first foray into mainstream filmmaking is also one of his most satisfying pictures. Adapted from a Stephen King novel it stars Chri...More at Family Video
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