This got put on last night as part of Mr Neenaw's pre-Halloween spooky film line-up. Normally this would mean a nasty horror film that I resolutely hide my head in a book from (not good on horror!). However with the Dead Zone, my head soon lifted up as I was first intrigued and then hooked. I wouldn't expect a straightforward horror film from David Cronenberg, but this isn't actually horror at all, though it does have elements of the supernatural, some graphic gore (though not exactly hardcore by Cronenberg standards of ick) - and the whole film is suffused with a feeling of the uncanny. It's adapted from a Stephen King book - but as I havent' read it I ...  Read the complete review

Many of Stephen King's novels have translated poorly to the big screen, or at least have lost much of their original power and malice in the translation. Cujo, was at best weak, Firestarted abysmal and the adaptation of IT was just plain sacrilege. However, there have also been some absolutely brilliant translations such as The Green Mile, The Shawshank Redemption and much earlier, this David Kronenberg directed adaptation starring Christopher Walken. Johnny Smith is a school teacher with a terrible 'gift'. Leaving his fiancee's house during a terrible storm, he is involved in a near fatal auto accident which leaves him in coma for 5 years. ...  Read the complete review

This 1983 film is directed by David Cronenberg, adapted from a Stephen King novel of the same name. Johnny Smith, played by Christopher Walken, is a young teacher in a happy relationship with his girlfriend Sarah. Unfortunately he is involved in a serious car accident which leaves him in a coma. When he awakes he finds that 5 years have passed and Sarah has married someone else. This is not the only change for Johnny though, as he finds that he now has a gift for knowing the past/present/future of people he touches. Despite being able to help people has a result it is a heavy burden he has to carry and when he finds out one man will be responsible for ...  Read the complete review

That contradiction in terms, a dull David Cronenberg film. About the only big studio project he's done, an adaptation of an entertaining but hardly subversive Stephen King novel about a man with psychic powers, it's an enjoyable thriller, but without any of the outlandish ideas and sequences that distinguish Cronenberg's oeuvre. Christopher Walken is suitably haunted as a man cursed / gifted with precognition after a long coma (during which he also gets an immeasurably better haircut), unable to slot back into normal life, but now capable of foretelling dreadful things when he touches people, and thus - sometimes - avoiding them. Having saved a ...  Read the complete review

Christopher Walken is (johnny smith) a school teacher who leaves his fiancee's house one night and then goes and rights of his car and puts himself in a coma .........five years pass and this guy wakes up. His loving fiancee got fed up of waiting for him and married some other fella (nice). but this is far from Johnny's major problem, if this guy touches you he gets a quick glimps into you future. Now this is all well and good, however if you try and help someone who you see a vision of them lets say"falling through ice in a hockey match on a frozan lake" and they don't belive you what do you do? And let's say you shake the ...  Read the complete review