Book to Movie: The Dead Zone (1983)

Book to Movie: The Dead Zone (1983)
Screenplay by Jeffery Boam
Directed by David Cronenberg

It was about 1983 that movies based on the works of Stephen King really became a hot commodity. The Dead Zone, Cujo, and Christine were all made into movies in 1983 with Children of the Corn and Firestarter following in 1984. During this time, screenwriters took liberties with King’s stories and usually made them work in the visual medium.

Jeffery Boam uses the ideas and concepts of King’s book. The movie captures the essence of King’s tale. However, he tells a different story. As I noted in my review of the book, this story was a tragedy. Boam tells King’s tale in a four act screenplay.

Sarah and Johnny – played exceptionally by Christopher Walken -- are planning to get married as the movie opens. They return home from the carnival where nothing happens. Sarah invites Johnny in to spend the night. The virtuous Johnny says he wants to put off sex until after marriage. They say goodnight and Johnny drives off into the night.

As he’s headed home in his yellow Volkswagen Beetle, a milk truck overturns in front of him and he collides with it. Sweet, wholesome milk does in sweet, wholesome Johnny Smith.

Johnny awakes in a private clinic run by his doctor, Sam Weizak. Almost five years have passed and he is stunned and heartbroken to hear that Sarah has moved on and gotten married.

Johnny’s first precognitive event is a great deal different in the movie and too melodramatic. Instead of just telling his therapist her house is on fire, as he does in the book, Johnny tells the therapist that her child’s bedroom is on fire with the child in it. The call for help is placed and Johnny saves the day!

His parents come to see him. We get hints of Johnny’s mother’s religious mania, but it is never developed. Sarah stops in also to tell Johnny of her life with her new husband and baby. She shares Johnny’s sorrow for their lost and doomed relationship.

Johnny returns home and tries to rebuild his life. His mom is now dead and he and his dad live alone in the country. One day, out of the blue as Johnny is splitting wood, Sarah shows up unexpectedly. They have lunch and when Sarah’s son falls asleep, they make love. They have dinner with Johnny’s dad, then Sarah leaves, making it clear that, after their love was consummated, she was moving on with the life she’d made for herself, without Johnny.

That is the chief emotional difference between the book and the movie. In the book, when Sarah and Johnny made love, Sarah made it clear it was a single act that was to suffice to make up for what was lost. It was ritualistic, and it was emotionally uplifting.

In the movie, the scene plays out as if Sarah is trying to absolve herself of something. She is quick to cut off Johnny’s pleas to see her again. She is done with him. She’s done her best to make it right. The scene in the movie is a downer.

Here ends Act One

Sheriff Bannerman of Castle Rock pays Johnny a visit. Driving him is the young deputy, Frank Dodd. Bannerman makes his plea for assistance and Johnny rejects his request and tells him to leave. But after hearing of another murder and pressure from his father, Johnny gives in and agrees to meet with Banner.

In the book, Johnny first handles the cigarette pack in the station where he can’t get anything. When he visits the crime scene is where he’s able to figure out Frank Dodd is the killer. In the movie, they are visiting the crime scene of the last murder when they are called to yet another murder that has just happened. Deputy Dodd drives them there and is then dispatched to handle crime control.

Johnny hovers over the spot in the town gazebo where the girl was killed and identifies Dodd as the killer. Dodd has taken the sheriff’s car and has headed for home. Bannerman and Johnny go to the house where they find Frank Dodd dead in the bathroom by his own hand.

The scene where Bannerman and Johnny close in on Dodd is the best part of the movie. Dodd’s mother is played exactly like Norman Bates’ mother and one can’t help but believe that King delved deeply into Robert Bloch’s Psycho inasmuch as he tapped Bram Stoker for ‘Salem’s Lot. The fifties, little boy cowboy motif of Frank Dodd’s bedroom and in the dilapidated house is a creepy setting suitable for a Stephen King movie. The brief interaction between Walken and Colleen Dewhurst who played Dodd’s mother is intense.

Here ends Act Two

As in the book, Johnny gets a job tutoring the son of a rich industrialist. But this story line plays out entirely differently than it does in the book.

As Johnny enters the Stuart home, he is introduced to Greg Stillson who is running for the U.S. Senate. Roger Stuart promises to consider a large donation to the Stillson campaign, but later tells Johnny that the guy is a buffoon – but a buffoon who will probably get elected.

Johnny agrees to tutor Stuart’s son, Chris. Chris is shy and struggles with school work. Johnny tutors him in reading and also works to build the kid’s self esteem. Roger is pleased with the progress. To reward Chris, Roger decides to form a hockey team, purchase the equipment, and coach it.

When Roger arrives at the home with the hockey gear, Johnny touches it and gets a premonition of the boys falling through the ice and sinking to the bottom of the pond (instead of being trapped in a burning building). Johnny frantically begs Roger Stuart to cancel the hockey practice. Johnny’s behavior scares Chris who also begs his dad to call it off. Disgusted and angry, Roger agrees. But Johnny is told his services are no longer needed.

Here ends the Third Act.

There is a knock at Johnny’s door and there to greet him is a Greg Stillson supporter going door to door for the campaign. As Johnny talks to him, his long lost Sarah walks up and introduces the campaign worker as her husband. The meeting is slightly awkward.

Greg decides to cross the street to the park and hear what Stillson has to say and see what makes him so charismatic and engaging. He greets Stillson as he approaches the stage. The two shake hands. Johnny gets hit with a terrifying image.

President Stillson is in his bunker. Before him is a general, reluctant to place his hand on a palm scanner and authorize a nuclear strike. Stillson is dressing him down for his cowardice when the Secretary of State bursts into the room, claiming that a diplomatic solution has been achieved. Stillson ignores them and launches the missiles, reveling in his triumph and his place in history.

When the two separate, both are stunned. Stillson staggers toward the stage, terrified by his new knowledge. A few days later, he asks Dr. Wiezak if he were given the opportunity, would he kill Hitler in his infancy. Without a moment of moral reflection Wiezak declares that he would.

This was where the movie is weakest. When asked in the book, Dr. Wiezak is concerned that Johnny has asked the question. He reflects before admitting that he would kill Hitler given the opportunity. In the movie, it appears almost as if Dr. Wiezak, whom Johnny has told of his Stillson vision, is compelling Johnny to act. Wiezak’s character is developed enough in the book and the movie for us to know he would not be so reckless in answering such a macabre hypothetical question asked of a man who is experiencing nervous and mental difficulties.

Greg decides to act. He acquires a sniper rifle and breaks into the town hall, hiding in the gallery. He is awakened by the entry of Stillson’s people when they enter to set up for the rally. He locks, loads, and waits. Stillson arrives and works his way to the stage.

Johnny jumps up and takes two shots, missing with both. As in the book, Stillson grabs a child and uses him for a shield. In the movie, it’s Sarah’s child who is at the rally with mom. Johnny recognizes her and her child just as a bullet from a Stillson body guard takes him in the chest. He falls from the balcony to the floor.

In the pandemonium, Stillson approaches the dying Johnny and asks, “Who are you?” Johnny grabs his hand. He sees Stillson, looking at the cover of Newsweek bearing the photo of him using the child as a shield. He takes a swig of whiskey and blows his brains out with a revolver. Johnny is satisfied he’s saved humanity.

Sarah comes over to him and weeps over his stricken body. As he dies, she tells him, “I love you.”

Although much different in the telling than the book, I thought Boam’s script was a tremendous rewrite of a book that would have been incredibly dull by direct transfer to screen.

This was before Christopher Walken had developed a reputation for playing crazy people, so his portrayal of vanilla Johnny Smith is believable and at times, superb.

King wrote many books better than The Dead Zone and many movies based on King’s work were better than The Dead Zone. However, many more were much worse. In the dozens of King’s works to be adapted to the visual medium, The Dead Zone certainly ranks as above average, but not anywhere near the best.

The Dead Zone By Stephen King

The Dead Zone
By Stephen King
Copyright 1979

With the publication of The Dead Zone in 1979, Stephen King created a venue which would serve as a backdrop for several of his books and short stories. Castle Rock, Maine was the setting for The Dead Zone, Cujo, The Body from Different Seasons, The Dark Half, and The Sun Dog from Four Past Midnight. Needful Things was billed as the last Castle Rock book although it would be the setting for one more short story – It Grows on You in Nightmares and Dreamscapes.

The stories aren’t serialized and share loose connections at best. The sheriffs Bannerman and Pangborn are the most frequent recurring characters. Unlike ‘Salem’s Lot, the town is not a character, just a setting.

I’ve moved on from reading the Dark Tower and have started The Castle Rock series.

The Dead Zone opens with a prologue informing the reader that, despite the fact that he could not remember it, Johnny Smith suffered a head injury in his youth, colliding with another kid who was playing hockey on a frozen pond.

In the other half of the prologue, we meet a door to door Bible salesman working the Nebraska countryside, moving from farm to farm. While stopped at a farm where the owner was not home, he kicks their dog to death. His name is Greg Stillson and the young man on the move is sure great things lie in store for him as he drives off, dead dog miles behind him.

There are a few plot lines that run parallel in the story and meet at various points through the story. The opening chapter is set in 1970. We meet Johnny Smith, teacher and as mild mannered as his vanilla name implies, and his girlfriend, Sarah Bracknell. The two high school teachers are headed to a carnival and Sarah is anticipating this will be the first time Johnny spends the night instead of just dropping her off at her apartment.

They get to the carnival and enjoy themselves thoroughly. On their way out, Johnny spots a roulette wheel. He smells burnt rubber and develops a throbbing in his head and suddenly is drawn to play. He cleans the carnie out by guessing the right number. Johnny makes more than $500 in about fifteen minutes.

Sarah’s plans for a romantic evening are thwarted when she started throwing up a bad hot dog while watching Johnny play the wheel. He leaves her at her apartment and catches a cab home. On the way home, the cab is hit head on by kids drag racing. The cabbie is killed instantly, as are the kids. Johnny has been gravely injured with massive head trauma.

He is transported to the hospital. Emergency surgery saves his life, but he’s in a deep coma. The damage is so bad, the neurologist tells Johnny’s stricken parents and a dazed Sarah, that it is unlikely that Johnnie will ever awaken.

The world moves on. . . .

The Vietnam War ends.

Spiro Agnew resigns. Nixon resigns. Gerald Ford becomes president

Johnny’s mother falls into fanatical and fantastic religion, believing that flying saucers are going to transport Christ’s true believers to a star in Orion where Heaven is located.

Johnny’s dad gets older prematurely dealing with his wife’s mania and his son’s deteriorating physical condition. He wishes his son would just die.

Sarah Bracknell moves on, finds a young and politically upward bound attorney, falls in love, and marries him.

A serial killer starts work in Castle Rock, killing ladies from 17 to 70, strangling them with their own stockings.

Greg Stillson becomes mayor of a New Hampshire town and sets his sights on a congressional seat.

A man crisscrosses New Hampshire, selling lighting rods. His stops by a bar named Cathy’s in Castle Rock and tries to make a sale over a couple beers with the barkeep. The barkeep insists that he already has lightning rods, when in fact he does not.

And Johnny Smith wakes up from his coma after missing more than four years of his life.

His brain is damaged and he loses words and images in what he calls “the Dead Zone” of his brain, but he also develops telepathy and precognitive ability.

He first displays it when he grasps his physical therapist’s hand and immediately senses that her house is on fire. Then he is able to tell his neurologist that his mother actually survived the blitzkrieg of Warsaw after they were separated. Soon the media picks up on his ability and he becomes a reluctant celebrity.

He is finally discharged from the hospital and sent home to live with his father, now a widower since Johnny’s mom died from hypertension. Strangers from all parts of the country send Johnny little items for him to fondle and reveal their secrets. Find lost loved ones, reveal deep secrets, and even assistance in choosing lottery numbers. He is miserable and bored, hating the attention and missing Sarah who moved on while his world stayed still.

Sarah stops in to visit Johnnie. She is terribly conflicted, feeling guilt for having abandoned Johnny and moved on, for falling in love with someone else and for leaving him behind. As they part company, he grasps her hand to tell her where it was she lost her wedding ring while she and her husband honeymooned. It was stuck in the luggage. Sarah returns home and finds her long lost wedding ring. She flushes it without telling her husband and tries to forget what she knows is true about Johnnie and his abilities.

She visits again, enticing Johnny to invite her to his father’s place when her husband is away on business and she is visiting friends nearby. There, she tries to make peace with the past by making love to Johnnie, telling him that this one act must make up for the night they lost that tragic night and a lifetime of lost love.

Johnny receives a call from his old principal who invites him to come back to teaching at the high school when he’s physically ready. Johnny is thrilled at the opportunity to get back to utilizing his old skills at pedagogy. He also receives a call from Castle Rock Sheriff George Bannerman. Bannerman needs Johnnie’s new skills to help him. Johnny reluctantly agrees to meet with him.

There is another murder in Castle Rock. This time, it’s a 14 year old girl walking between the library and the school. The public pressure is on and Bannerman is desperate.

The meet and Johnnie agrees to try to discern some clues from a cigarette pack found at the scene. He then insists on visiting the crime scene. Upon arriving at the location of the latest murder, Johnny is able to discern that the rapist and murder always wore a raincoat so none of his victims could scratch him. He staggers to a nearby earlier crime scene that leads Bannerman to his suspect, who commits suicide just as Bannerman confronts him.

Johnny once again becomes the focus of national media attention. That high profile costs him his teaching gig and he moves on to tutoring the son of a textile magnate who has a reading disability and needs help desperately. Johnny moves into the guest house on the family’s estate and begins work.

While tutoring, he develops a fascination with politics and the 1976 election. He meets Jimmy Carter and knows instantly that he will win a close election over Gerald Ford. He also follows closely a New Hampshire independent named Greg Stillson, running for Congress.

Greg Stillson has come a long way from being a door to door Bible salesman. He’s now a successful insurance agent and mayor of a middle class New Hampshire city with a tough on crime philosophy. Greg also recruits outlaws to serve as his personal security. He runs an unorthodox campaign with wild policy pronouncements (We’ll blast the pollution into outer space), to unorthodox festival bordering on maniacal campaign rallies. Greg Stillson is a cult of personality and he is the favorite to win in the New Hampshire third congressional district.

Johnny decides to attend a Stillson rally and see the carnival of American politics for himself. He gets to the rally and fights hard against the compulsion to grab Stillson’s hand. Finally, he loses the battle and Stillson grabs his hand. Both are galvanized.

Johnny has visions of an older and grayer Greg Stillson taking the oath of office for the presidency. He then sees visions of a world on the brink of world war, with Greg Stillson leading the charge to Armageddon.

Johnny is stunned by what he’s just learned. He has just shaken hands with the man who will end civilization on earth. He ponders what his responsibilities are as custodian of this knowledge and what, if anything, he should do about it.

His tutoring job is going very well with his charge dramatically improving his reading and writing skills. He will now graduate on time with his class and, after a short stint in prep school will go to college.

The young man’s father hosts a party the night before graduation for friends and their parents. While there, Johnny learns that there is going to be a tragic fire at Cathy’s restaurant where most of the kids plan to go after graduation the next night. Johnny pleads with the father and the children not to go. Johnny’s pupil believes him and insists that his dad host a party instead and invite everyone to the house instead of allowing them to go to Kathy’s. Some kids accept, but many opt to stay with their original plans.

Events unfold just as Johnnie predicted. Lightning struck Cathy’s restaurant and sets the place ablaze. Kids rush for the exits and are stuck at the exits, trying to squeeze out when smoke and fire overtakes them. More than 40 kids died.

After the fire, Johnny opts to disappear.

Here, King dramatically alters his narrative style. No longer are we privy to Johnny Smith’s thoughts. In a detached style, King walks us through Johnny’s growing obsession with Greg Stillson and his campaign. He goes to a gun store and buys a sniper rifle and ammunition. People notice that he has a badly bloodshot eye.

He is living in Phoenix and working on a road crew, having disappeared from the world after the new, unwanted fame that came from the prediction of the disaster at Kathy’s. His former student’s father tracks him down and offers him a large sum of money (King never reveals the amount). Johnnie keeps refusing. Finally, after the man has sent several checks, Johnnie takes the money to fund what he has come to believe is sad duty to perform for history.

He writes several letters, to his father, to Sarah, to his neurologist, explaining what he is doing and why he is doing it. He mails them and then heads north for New Hampshire where he prepares to save the world.

He sneaks into a hall where Stillson is preparing to address a crowd. He waits with his rifle for his target to appear. Finally, Greg Stillson arrives and Johnny takes his shot and misses. He fires again and misses again. After he takes a third shot, Stillson’s body guards fire back and shoot Johnny. Mortally wounded, he fires one more shot. Just as he dies, he sees Greg Stillson grab a kid and use him for a shield. A photographer takes a picture of Stillson’s cowardly act.

In the epilogue, we read Johnny’s letters. We learn that he had developed a brain tumor. He insists to his father to never believe that the tumor had caused him to act. His mother’s parting words to him were that God had a special purpose for him and he should not act as Jonah, but act as God’s instrument. He was saving humanity from Greg Stillson.

There were also Senate hearings chaired by newly minted Maine Senator William Cohen. Here, we learn that Johnny’s tumor was operable, but that he refused the operation. His final days on the road crew were full of blackouts caused by the tumor. People testified to his how ill he looked in his final days.

The book ends with Sarah approaching his grave and weeping for all that had happened.

The Dead Zone was Stephen King’s first departure from horror. There are psychic elements to the story, but no true horror that was found in his earlier works.

The story of Johnny Smith is a tragedy. The story didn’t have a hero at the end. Jonnny Smith just wanted the life he lost to tragic circumstances. But every time he got a shot at resuming life, the curse of his new ability doomed him. Of all King’s works, this one is the most tragic.

Many King fans rank this as one of his best. I rank it as one of his second tier works with books like The Talisman and Eyes of the Dragon.

It’s an entertaining and engaging story with several plots evolving at once. The plots were simple and drawn together simply. A more mature King could have woven a lot more complexity into the story and made it better. But at this early stage of his career, horror was what he wrote best. His first deviation from the horror formula was not bad. He would later show the world with works such as Different Seasons that, as he matured, he was quite capable of writing outside the genre. But with The Dead Zone, he’s venturing forth for the first time, and a lack of maturity shows.

We will meet Sheriff George Bannerman again in King’s next Castle Rock installment, Cujo.

A movie starring Christopher Walken and Martin Sheen was made in 1983. The story is changed dramatically toward the end to give the ending greater drama. It’s a slightly above average adaptation of a slightly above average King work.

There was also a television series based loosely on the novel entitled Stephen King’s The Dead Zone and starred Anthony Michael Hall. I never watched the series. Fans give it 7.3 stars on IMDB, so it must not be too bad. It ran for six seasons, from 2002 to 2007 on the USA network.