The Dead Zone

This is the first film David Cronenberg made with no hand in the script. Stephen King adapted his own novel for it; Cronenberg says he was sent 5 screenplays, that King’s was by far the worst, and that he set it aside for being needlessly brutal. The script shot was Jeffrey Boam’s, begun at Lorimar with Stanley Donen attached; Boam finished his first draft on the day of the 1980 presidential election. Boam broke the novel’s interlocking structure into three panels: Johnny before the crash and after the coma, the search for the Castle Rock killer, and the politician Stillson. In that first draft Johnny did not die, and Cronenberg insisted the trick ending be rewritten. The music broke habit too: Michael Kamen replaced Howard Shore, recording with the National Philharmonic Orchestra at Abbey Road in London. Filming took place in Ontario through a deep freeze that lasted weeks, using the Screaming Tunnel near Niagara. Paramount pulled the Toronto festival screening 3 days beforehand rather than collect bad reviews 6 weeks before release. A good fit if you want Christopher Walken carrying the gift as a punishment and the film forcing a moral decision at the close. Not for anyone expecting the body horror of the director; Dave Kehr of the Chicago Reader found it bland for that reason.