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The online film magazine Combustible Celluloid offers new movie reviews, DVD reviews, film reviews, actor interviews, actress interviews, director interviews, film books and all things cinema related for the thoughtful and passionate. Online for ten years! Over 3000 reviews!

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The Dead Zone (1983)

Rating: 3 1/2 Stars (out of 4)

Future Shock

By Jeffrey M. Anderson

Buy The Dead Zone on DVD

This adaptation of a Stephen King bestseller was David Cronenberg's first "job for hire" in Hollywood, and for a time it was also his most universally acclaimed movie. Maybe it served as a kind of inoculation toward his more personal works. Christopher Walken stars in a terrifically modulated performance, part deranged, part haunted, as Johnny Smith. Just after he becomes engaged to his beloved Sarah (Brooke Adams), he gets into a car accident that leaves him in a coma. Years later, he awakens to discover that not only is Sarah married to someone else, but also he has the power to see the future of anyone he touches. After a series of shocking events, he retreats to live as privately as possible, but visions of an up-and-coming politician (Martin Sheen) begin to draw him out. Cronenberg tells the story with measured strokes and a sure emotional touch as well as nifty blasts of horror. It's a solid piece of work.

DVD Details: Paramount's 2000 DVD comes with a theatrical trailer. In 2006, they released a "special edition" with several featurettes.

Starring: Christopher Walken, Brooke Adams, Martin Sheen, Tom Skerritt, Herbert Lom, Anthony Zerbe, Colleen Dewhurst, Nicholas Campbell
Written by: Jeffrey Boam, based on a novel by Stephen King
Directed by: David Cronenberg
MPAA Rating: R
Running Time: 103 minutes
Date: October 21, 2005