donn@sdchema.UUCP (11/19/83)
[This is part of a batch of articles from San Diego that the rest of the net never saw, because our net connection was down -- sorry if you have seen this before, or if the discussion seems dated.] I liked Stephen King's novel THE DEAD ZONE better than any other novel of King's I have read, so I was curious to see what the movie was like. The plot of the novel involves a man who takes his girlfriend out on a date to a carnival; at the carnival he decides to play the 'Wheel of Fortune' and finds to his surprise that he can exactly predict the place where the wheel stops. His precognitive experiences increase in clarity and nastiness until one day he shakes the hand of a politician who, he realizes, will become president and lead the country into an apocalyptic nuclear war. Lots of other interesting things happen but I won't spoil it for you. The novel has realistic characters and believable situations and a truly touching ending. The movie makes a travesty of the novel. This is the sort of movie which King himself might enjoy; his taste in movies runs to trashy horror flicks like Director Cronenberg's THE BROOD (see King's book DANSE MACABRE to find out why he likes these films). Unfortunately this kind of treatment destroys the feeling of the novel, which has far less gore and slobber than other King novels like THE SHINING or CUJO. The acting is just awful, and it is not helped by the script's incredibly banal and inane dialogue. Christopher Walken as the protagonist John Smith is only slightly less wooden than his supporting cast (the supporting performances are out of an excruciatingly bad TV-movie, except for Martin Sheen as the evil politician, who comes off as a cross between a B-movie mad scientist and a B-movie hood). The script makes a hash of the novel's plot, leaving out most of the exposition (including the Wheel of Fortune episode) and the entire denouement, and makes pointless changes to various scenes including the climax, in every case weakening the dramatic impact in order to add a little more dripping blood. I was strongly tempted to leave early, but I decided to stick with it so I could say I saw all of it when reviewing it... but it wasn't really worth it -- the only part worth watching is the opening credit sequence, a kind of dark New England travelogue (quite pretty, actually). I firmly recommend the book, but avoid the movie if you can. Donn Seeley UCSD Chemistry Dept. RRCF ucbvax!sdcsvax!sdchema!donn