Coming down with a headache after a roller-coaster ride in Castle Rock, Maine, schoolteacher Johnny Smith (Christopher Walken) declines spending the night with his girlfriend Sarah Bracknell (Brooke Adams). As he drives home through a storm, he crashes the car and ends up in a coma. When he awakens, Doctor Sam Weizak (Herbert Lom) tells him that he has been unconscious for five years and Sarah is married with children.
But he has gained the ability to see the past, present, and future of people’s lives when he touches them. He sees a nurse’s daughter trapped in a fire. He sees that Doctor Weizack’s mother, thought to have died in World War II, is still alive. And he sees how a reporter’s sister committed suicide.
Johnny learns to walk again with physical therapy but has a limp and uses a cane. Sarah still cares for him, but they drift apart. Sheriff George Bannerman (Tom Skerritt) asks his help with a series of murders. He discovers that Deputy Frank Dodd (Nicholas Campbell) is the killer. Dodd commits suicide before he can be arrested, and Dodd’s mother shoots Johnny before being killed by Bannerman.
Johnny moves to a different town and lives in isolation, his abilities contributing to his physical weakness, and he refuses further treatment. He works at home tutoring children. Wealthy businessman Roger Stuart (Anthony Zerbe) hires Johnny to tutor his son Chris (Simon Page). Johnny meets Greg Stillson (Martin Sheen), a charismatic third-party candidate for the U.S. Senate. Stuart warns Johnny that Stilson is dangerous.
Johnny has a vision of Chris and two other boys drowning in a local pond while ice-skating. He asks Stuart to change his plans but Stuart refuses and fires Johnny. Chris stays home and the other two boys drown. Johnny realizes he has a Dead Zone in his visions in which the future can be changed.
At a political rally, Johnny shakes Stillson’s hand and has a vision of him as President beginning a nuclear war. Doctor Weizack tells him that if he had known Hitler’s future, he would have no choice but to try to kill him. Johnny leaves a good-bye letter to Sarah about his intended sacrifice.
Sarah and her family attend a rally for Stillson. Johnny sneaks in with a rifle and shoots at Stillson but misses and is shot himself by Stillson’s bodyguard. But Stillson grabs Sarah’s baby and holds it up as a human shield. Photographers grab the picture, and Johnny sees that Stillson’s career ends in disgrace. He dies, satisfied.
The film was directed by David Cronenberg, but it was rather sedate compared to much of his work. Jerry Boam wrote the screenplay, based on the 1979 novel by Stephen King. It received very positive reviews and inspired a TV series in 2000, starring Anthony Michael Hall. The first draft of the script was finished on the day Ronald Reagan was elected. Five scripts were submitted and the one by Stephen King was considered worst. King praised Cronenberg’s script version as better than his own.
Bill Murray was King’s first choice for the role of Johnny. I can’t see Bill Murray as a believable Johnny, myself, and I think most people simply can’t take their eyes off Christopher Walken, no matter what he does. The story was filmed in a particularly cold winter in Cronenberg’s native Ontario, which helped the story considerably, though it was hard on cast and crew.
The film received very positive reviews, with 89% on Rotten Tomatoes. Roger Ebert thought it the best film adaptation of a Stephen King story. Starting off with a quote from Edgar Allen Poe doesn’t hurt. In the same year, Christopher Walken starred in Brainstorm. I think this movie belongs to him. If you don’t love him, there’s something wrong with you. His quiet, patient demeanour reminded me of two of my favourite characters from literature: Michael Valentine Smith in Robert Heinlein’s Stranger in a Strange Land, and Jesus Christ.