The Dead Zone, on the other hand, is the one with the ordinary schoolteacher (John Smith, no middle name) who might be a touch psychic, who gets in an accident, ends up in a coma, wakes up from the coma to discover he’s really psychic, avoids using this new ability, then (reluctantly) uses it a bit, mostly to save people/property from fires, once (reluctantly) to chase a serial killer, then … eventually … to try to save America and the world from a loose cannon politician. Having psychic power is a great super trope, be it with touch, senses, taking certain drugs to get in the right mood and mindset, feed on happiness, fear, or boredom, hey, that would be funny, controlling and brainwashing other people, etc. Easily combinable with time travel, alternative realities, fantasy, sci-fi in general, and fine to implement in any half or full breed real life events, not to forget innuendos and connotations. While he is asleep, John loses his career, girlfriend, everything. He wakes up a pauper in material terms, but endowed with the full-fledged version of his latent childhood gift.

I ended up loving Johnny Smith by the end and all the characters were fantastic, even the ones that you hated. Hablemos primero de Jhonny, que es lo más importante y es quien nos cuenta la mayor parte de la historia. En el prólogo lo vemos como un niño que sufre un pequeño accidente y tiempo después, ocurre lo mismo, pero esta vez peor, dejándolo en coma. Cuando despierta se encuentra con la realidad, que lo golpea con rudeza pues el tiempo se lo ha arrebatado todo. Es un personaje con muchísimos matices. Pasa por distintas circunstancias que te harán pensar y reflexionar. Y lo bueno del libro es que nunca te aburre. Y no, no es que haya mucha acción sino que el personaje pasa por momentos interesantes, haciendo que el lector tenga una montaña rusa de emociones. Ferrante, A.C. (May 1, 2013). "Exclusive Interview: The Last Crusade of Screenwriter Jeffrey Boam". Assignment X/EON Magazine. Midnight Productions, Inc.The cast are on point and Lom who is famous for his villianous characters (Pink Panther for example) is highly likeable and steals every scene he's in. This was my second time in The Dead Zone. I remember the first time fondly as this is only one of two Stephen King books I read in one sitting (the other being Pet Sematary). The first time was in the late 1990s at an all-night coffee shop in Cincinnati. I read until the sun came up fueled on caffeine and the enthralling words of the Master of Horror himself.

John Smith (his name immediately marks him out as the "common man") is blessed and cursed with second sight. It began as a minor ability due to a skating accident in his childhood; but when he wins big time at the roulette wheel in a village carnival, this "gift" proves to be his undoing. Because while coming home late from the carnival, the taxi John is travelling in meets with a horrific accident, and he is precipitated into a four-year coma. Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times gave the film three-and-a-half stars, describing The Dead Zone as by far the best of the half-a-dozen cinematic adaptations of King's novels to that date. He praised Cronenberg's direction for successfully weaving the supernatural into the everyday, and noted believable performances by the entire cast, especially Walken: "Walken does such a good job of portraying Johnny Smith, the man with the strange gift, that we forget this is science fiction or fantasy or whatever and just accept it as this guy's story." [29] Janet Maslin of The New York Times referred to the film as "a well-acted drama more eerie than terrifying, more rooted in the occult than in sheer horror." [30] Robin Wood stated that it was the first film by Cronenberg that he could admire and called it a "healthy development". [31] Who else but Christopher Walken could play Johnny Smith in the highly praised David Cronenberg film? Johnny goes through the same thought processes. Logically, he should find a way to stop Stillson, but there is the nagging worry that he could just make things worse. In my own personal opinion, this is the best story Stephen King has ever written. Not the most frightening, not the most thrilling, no: but this novel has true literary merit. And a tragic hero (not a mere "protagonist, mind you) who really qualifies for the title.Lambie, Ryan (February 21, 2015). "Why The Dead Zone Is One of the Best Stephen King Films". Den of Geek . Retrieved July 2, 2019. By 1970, Johnny is a high school teacher in the small town of Cleaves Mills, Maine with a new girlfriend named Sarah. After winning repeatedly at a carnival wheel of fortune, Johnny is involved in a car accident and falls into a coma. Waking up over four years later, Johnny finds that he has suffered a neural injury, with one part of his brain seriously damaged, making it a "dead zone." As if to compensate, other parts of the brain now show heightened activity. As a result, Johnny sometimes experiences clairvoyant visions when touching people and objects. His mother, who has become fanatically religious during the period of Johnny's coma, insists that he has been given a holy mission which he must not decline; she soon dies of a stroke.

The FBI agent is killed by a car bomb. Meanwhile, Johnny's warnings that a disaster will occur at his pupil's graduation party are ignored by some, leading to several deaths. Now believing he must take more decisive action to prevent nuclear war, and learning his headaches are the result of a brain tumor, Johnny buys a rifle to kill Stillson. At the next rally, Stillson begins his speech and Johnny shoots from a balcony. He misses and is wounded by guards. Stillson grabs a young child and holds him up as a human shield. A bystander photographs Stillson's act. Unable to shoot a child, Johnny is shot twice by the bodyguards. He falls off the balcony, mortally wounded. Dying, Johnny touches Stillson a final time. He feels only dwindling impressions but knows the terrible future has been prevented. When published, the picture of Stillson using a child as a shield ends his political career. Johnny Smith wakes from a coma with the psychic ability to read a person when he touches them. Will he use this ability for good or for selfish reasons? And what's the deal with this Greg Stillson character that's swiftly becoming a heavy hitter in the political realm? I was more reflective while reading this and wondering how I would react if I had Johnny's abilities and life.A film adaptation of The Dead Zone was released in 1983, starring Christopher Walken, and directed by David Cronenberg.

a b Wiater, Stanley; Golden, Christopher; Wagner, Iank (May 2001). The Stephen King Universe: The Guide to the Worlds of the King of Horror. Renaissance Books. p.139. ISBN 1-58063-160-6. The Dead Zone sort of explores Stephen King’s development as a skilled author, in this book he shows that his characters are becoming more deeply fleshed out than previous works but in my opinion he loses his way with the story a little, concentrating more on one aspect of the story and dropping the ball in others. I’ve always thought this was one of King’s better books but hadn’t read it for years. A new audio version with James Franco narrating and doing a pretty good job of it got me motivated, and I’m pleased to find that it mostly lives up to my memory of it. Mental powers are a commonly used trope in King´s works and I couldn´t name another author who uses it with such ingenuity, because he unleashes the characters to observe how they freely develop their angelic or hellish powers and become the mentalist, mind penetrating elve, psych necromancer with daddy issues, or whatever. One could say it are descriptions of what his subconsciousness imagines certain magical powers might be made out of and how they could manifest in normal humans, ghosts, or any mythological figure.

Dave Kehr of the Chicago Reader was more critical of the film, describing it as "By no means a bad film, just a disappointingly bland and superficial one ... in which director David Cronenberg relinquishes the one thing that had always set him apart from his Canadian colleagues: his willingness to follow his intuitions rather than the logic of a script." [32] See also [ edit ]