The Dead Zone is a 1983 science fiction thriller directed by David Cronenberg and starring Christopher Walken, Martin Sheen, Brooke Adams, Herbert Lom, Tom Skerritt, Colleen Dewhurst, and Anthony Zerbe. It was adapted from the novel of the same name by Stephen King. (The show was later adapted into a USA Network series.)
After awakening from a five-year coma, Johnny Smith (Walken) is heartbroken to discover life has passed him by. His girlfriend Sarah Bracknell (Adams) has moved on and started a family, he's lost his job, and his mother Vera (Jackie Burroughs) has become a Christian zealot due to her grief and failing health. Moreover, Johnny soon discovers he has gained the power to see a person's future with a mere touch. This gift brings him nothing but pain; and upon touching the hand of presidential hopeful Greg Stillson (Sheen), Johnny discovers Stillson is a psychopath destined to cause the nuclear apocalypse.
The Dead Zone contains examples of:
- Abusive Dad: Roger Stuart is the emotionally bullying kind towards his son when the latter believes in Johnny's powers and warnings.
- Adaptational Jerkass:
- Johnny's employer to tutor his son, Roger Stuart, who is a mixture of Roger Chatsworth, the wealthy man who hires Johnny to be his son's private tutor to help him get over his reading disability, and Bruce Carrick, the owner of the restaurant that catches fire in the book. In the book, Chatsworth humors Johnny by having his son and some of his friends have a party at his house and, after they are spared from the restaurant tragedy, writes Johnny a generous check in gratitude. Stuart is more of a vehement Fantasy Forbidding and Supernatural-Proof Father and an Upper-Class Twit bully who disbelieves Johnny about the fatal hockey game in which the thin ice would break with his son Chris on it and fires him to get him off his and his son's backs. He is also an emotionally Abusive Dad towards Chris for believing Johnny. When the incident happens, Roger, the next day has a traumatized expression on his face whilst sitting in his armchair and turning to alcohol as he regrets going against Johnny's warning, even though Chris actually listened and survived, while two of his friends perished and eight other boys also fell through the ice and were taken to the hospital to be treated for hypothermia.note
- In the book one of Stillson's redeeming qualities was his relationship to his late mother, but the film version of Stillson is never noted to have any deep familial ties.
- Adaptational Name Change: Roger Chatsworth becomes Roger Stuart in the film, while his son Chuck is renamed Chris. In fact, enough details are changed that they're basically different characters.
- Adaptational Villainy: Stillson, as if he weren't already villainous in the book. In the novel, it's left unclear whether Stillson will start the nuclear war deliberately or through his incompetence, while the movie does no such thing. In Johnny's vision, Stillson gives the launch order euphorically, even though a diplomatic solution to the international crisis has been reached.
- Adapted Out: In the book, we had Shelly Chatsworth, Chuck's Mother and Roger's wife. In the movie, it's possible that Chris' parents are either divorced with his father gaining sole custody of him, or she died.
- Badass Boast: After Johnny has a glimpse of Stillson’s suicidal fate (from the published image of Stillson holding the toddler as a human shield ruining his presidental campaign) after failing to assassinate him, he dons a Psychotic Smirk and says he is done for.Johnny: [to Stillson] It’s over… You’re finished.
- Bait-and-Switch: When Johnny tries to assassinate Stillson at the presidential rally, a photographer is seen taking pictures, as some viewers may believe he was taking pictures at Johnny trying to shoot Stillson. But it turns out that the photographer was actually taking pictures of Stillson holding a toddler up as a human shield, resulting in his political career to be tainted forever and causing a depressed Stillson (as seen in Johnny's final vision) to kill himself.
- Broken Pedestal: Johnny becomes this to his tutoring employer Roger Stuart when he tries to warn him about the ice breaking at the fatal hockey practice, only to be vehemently disbelieved and then fired as Roger initially thought Johnny was trying to be The Atoner with his tutoring job to pay his debt to society for being a Con Man with his so-called "fake" powers that prompted him to hire him in the first place and later believed Johnny is unrepentantly trying to con him and his son about the fatal hockey game that instead gave him a reason to fire him. It turns out Johnny wasn't conning him.
- Condescending Compassion: It turns out Roger's initial hiring of Johnny as his son tutor was this out of the former thinking the latter was an ex-Con Man who committed public fraud with his allegedly fabricated ability to see into the future and was trying to turn over a new leaf, but when Johnny used his powers to warn him of the impending danger his son will face, he angrily disbelieves him and fires him out of thinking he was an unrepentant Con Man trying to scare him and his son instead.
- Death by Adaptation: Stillson. In the novel it's clear he's still alive while the hearings in the wake of his stunt at the rally are taking place (one witness declares Stillson wouldn't even be voted for dogcatcher). In the movie, Johnny's last vision is of Stillson committing suicide when he realizes that Johnny was right: "It's over. You're finished."
- Dies Differently in Adaptation:
- Played with. In the novel, Johnny's first "public" unveiling of his powers involves him touching a medallion belonging to a skeptical reporter and revealing that it belonged to his beloved sister, who died of drug abuse, but never stopped loving him even as she overdosed. In the film, he instead is hassled by a different reporter, who also has a dead sister, but whom Johnny instead implies committed suicide due to her brother's abuse — Johnny is also more hostile to the man, asking if he'd like to know why she really committed suicide rather than conveying her dying feelings like he did in the book.
- In the novel, Frank Dodd commits suicide by sitting on the toilet in his mother's bathroom, naked save for the work poncho he used to avoid leaving evidence when he raped his victims, and cutting his throat. In the film, he stabs himself in the brain with a pair of open scissors through his open mouth.
- Driven to Suicide: Dodd and Stillson.
- Dying Declaration of Love: Johnny says his last word when spending his final loving moments with Sarah, visibly having a Single Tear when saying this.Johnny: [whispering, to Sarah] Goodbye.
- Even Evil Has Standards: Stillson's bodyguard Sonny is a violent thug, but even he is disgusted by Stillson's cowardly use of a baby as a human shield. When Stillson orders Sonny to track down and possibly kill the photographer who took the incriminating photos and destroy the evidence, Sonny just shrugs and lies to him by saying that he didn't see any photographer.
- Everyone Has Standards: Despite undergoing Adaptational Jerkass, even Roger Stuart thinks Stillson's dangerous. He also makes sure that Johnny receives his final check after firing him.
- Evil Is Hammy: When Johnny has a vision of Greg Stillson starting a nuclear war Martin Sheen hams it up for all it's worth.
- Gory Discretion Shot: In Johnny’s last vision of a disgraced and depressed Stillson killing himself by putting a gun under his chin after the photo of his cowardly and heinous action of using a baby as a human shield is developed. It cuts away as a gunshot is heard and blood splatters onto the magazine.
- Hate Sink: While Stillson's a monster for sure, at least he's charismatic, Roger Stuart, the Adaptational Jerkass version of Roger Chatsworth from the original book, however is an Upper-Class Twit who is also a vehement Fantasy-Forbidding Father who angrily disbelieves Johnny about the fatal hockey game out of his own inflexibility of changing his agenda, accuses Johnny of being a Con Man who fakes his powers and trying to scare him and his son and an emotionally Abusive Dad towards his son when he disobeys him in favor of Johnny.
- Hero with Bad Publicity: Johnny, as not only his powers makes him a social outcast, but he can alternatively be seen as The Cassandra Con Man towards anyone who doesn't believe in his powers such as Roger Stuart.
- Hitler's Time Travel Exemption Act: Johnny presents this scenario to Dr. Weizak as a way to decide whether he should go through with his decision to kill Stillson before he causes a nuclear apocalypse. Weizak tries avoiding the question, but he finally states that as a man of medicine, he's expected to save lives and ease suffering and that he loves people, so yes, even if he didn't get away alive, he would "kill the son of a bitch".
- I Lied and It's All About Me: The former leads into the latter. Roger organizes a Hockey team for Chris and his friends and names himself the coach, but he's not doing it for Chris or any of his friends, he's doing it for himself. Angry at having to call off the practice due to Johnny's warning about thin ice breaking, even after spending a lot of money on equipment, Roger does so just to get Johnny to leave. No sooner has Johnny left does Roger reveal to Chris that he lied and tries to get Chris to come and play Hockey with his friends, but Chris refuses, even when his father tries insisting through bullying. While mad that Chris won't listen to him, Roger takes the other boys out to the pond so that the money and equipment won't go to waste and to prove Johnny's a fraud, which ends up biting him in the ass; when the ice breaks, two of Chris' friends drown, both due to the gear adding more weight and eight other boys inadvertently blocking them from swimming back to the top, while the other eight are pulled out and taken to the hospital to be treated for hypothermia, all of which leaves Roger in serious legal trouble and his life ruined while Chris lived.
- Labcoat of Science and Medicine: Dr. Sam Weizak almost consistently wears one in the hospital scenes.
- Meaningful Background Event: When Johnny and Sheriff Bannerman converse in the tunnel, Frank Dodd can be seen nervously looking back and forth at them. It's because he's legitimately scared that Johnny is going to oust him as the serial killer then and there.
- Noodle Incident: When the tabloid reporter pushes Johnny to demonstrate his alleged powers, Johnny asks him if he'd really like to know how and why his sister committed suicide. The reporter's reaction is one of fear and disgust, suggesting that something that he did drove his sister to suicide, or at least he somehow bears some responsibility for what happened. We never find out what that was.
- Oh, Crap!:
- The look that Stillson's vice president and secretary of state give to each other when he tells them that the missiles are flying in Johnny's vision.
- Johnny has this after glimpsing the future vision of Stillson forcing his general to help launch missiles to start a nuclear war.
- Stillson may express this when Johnny tells him his chances of becoming President are finished after seeing into his future following his failed assassination attempt.
- Omnicidal Maniac: Stillson.Greg Stillson: The missiles are flying! Hallelujah, Hallelujah!
- Papa Wolf: Roger Stuart entered this mode against Johnny when he thinks Johnny was trying to con him about the fatal hockey practice and fires him as his son's tutor. However, Johnny ended up being right, as Roger inadvertently killed two of Chris' friends and caused eight other boys to be hospitalized for hypotherni by not listening to him.
- Shout-Out: The movie's title appears gradually over the opening credits, like Alien (which also featured Tom Skerritt).
- The Shrink: Dr. Sam Weizak eventually becomes this to a sort with Johnny. While he's mainly there to treat Johnny's physical trauma, he also serves as a sounding board once Johnny figures out he has a "gift", and he discuss the pros and cons of him using it, and the negative effect it could have on people's perceptions of Johnny. The biggest moment comes when Johnny is on the fence about shooting Stillson to prevent nuclear war, and asks Weizak if he'd kill Hitler if he could go back in time. When the good-natured Weizak admits he'd do it, even if it meant his death in the process, it's the final push Johnny needs.
- Title Drop: Every version features the phrase "the dead zone". However, oddly enough each version ascribes the phrase a different meaning. In the movie, Johnny explains to another character that his visions of the future are different from his visions of the past or present, in that they had a "dead zone" — his way of describing a sense that the future events seen in his visions weren't fully set and could be changed.
- Two-Keyed Lock: Before pushing the Big Red Button to launch the nuclear missiles, Stillson needs a general to scan his handprint to verify the command, and threatens to cut his hand off and do it himself if he won't.Stillson: Do it, General.
General: You’re insane. I won’t.
Stillson: DO IT! Put your hand on the scanning screen, and you’ll go down in history with me.
General: As what? The world’s greatest mass murderers?
Stillson: You cowardly bastard! You’re not the voice of the people, I am the voice of the people! The people speak through me, not you! [to Sonny] Came to me while I slept, Sonny. My destiny. In the middle of the night, it came to me! I must get up now, right now, and fulfill my destiny! [to the General] NOW YOU PUT YOUR GODDAMN HAND ON THAT SCANNING SCREEN, OR I’LL HACK IT OFF AND PUT IT ON FOR YOU! DO IT! - Villainous Breakdown: Upon realizing what Johnny meant when he told him he ' finished (after the latter saw a vision of him committing suicide due to his disgraceful action of using a toddler as a human shield that ruins his chances of being elected as President), Stillson has this as he tries to go after the photographer, even asking Sonny where he is, although it's already too late.Stillson: [to Sonny, angrily] Where's that kid with the camera?! He was taking pictures!
Sonny: [beat; disgusted] I didn’t see him.
Stillson: [shakes Sonny violently] YOU ASSHOLE! [flees from the scene] - White Void Room: Inverted. When Johnny sees a vision of Stillson’s fate foretelling his political career and his chances of becoming president becoming ruined from a published image of Stillson using a toddler as a human shield, Stillson is shown sitting in a dark black void although furniture such as a nightstand, lamp, chair, carpet and several objects were present.
- Would You Like to Hear How They Died?: A rare non-villainous example occurs in the film, when Johnny is being berated by a reporter and accused of being a fraud. After touching the reporter's hand, Johnny eventually loses his patience and calmly asks if he would like to know how his sister really killed herself, implying the reporter drove his sister to suicide.