The Dead Zone

"The Dead Zone" (1983, David Cronenberg, Dino De Laurentiis Company, Lorimar Film Entertainment) is an adaptation of a Stephen King story.

Johnny Smith (Christopher Walken) is a schoolteacher in the small American town of Castle Rock. After spending the day with his girlfriend and colleague, Sarah (Brooke Adams), he declines her offer to spend the night at her place and drives home in a storm. He is involved in a terrible accident and ends up in a coma.

Five years later Johnny awakes not only to find that Sarah has married another, but also that his coma has caused Johnny to develop certain psychic abilities. He reluctantly helps the local police with some cases, but his abilities lead him to more and more trouble. Johnny decides to try to use his powers to stop a huge catastrophe, but he may not live to tell the tale...

A relatively slow moving film, that remains engrossing regardless of its pace. Walken brings the role to life in his usual characteristic and intense manner. More of a thriller than a horror, the film manages to make you almost forget entirely that you're watching a film about supernatural abilities: it seems so matter of fact and normal. It's also quite true to the source material and feels like its made by a master, despite being more mainstream than Cronenberg's usual films.

Poor Johnny gets the fuzzy end of the lollipop in this film. Poor guy.

[Image: Dino De Laurentiis Company, et al]

Hani

The Brood

"The Brood" (1979, David Cronenberg, Canadian Film Development Corporation, New World-Mutual, New World Pictures) is a sci-fi horror film.

Hal Raglan (Oliver Reed) is an unconventional psychotherapist who runs a retreat called the Somafree Institute where he practices "psychoplasmics" on his mentally disturbed patients. Nola Carveth (Samantha Eggar) is a disturbed woman staying at the institute who's also in a bitter legal battle with her husband, Frank (Art Hindle) over their five year old daughter, Candice (Cindy Hinds). After Candi visits her mother Frank spots some marks on her back and tells Raglan that he will not allow his wife to see their daughter again because he believes that she is physically abusing her, as her own mother did to her. Things become even more concerning when some people close to Candice are brutally murdered by what appears to be children...

A strange film which manages to juggle some pretty heavy topics about abuse, alcoholism, relationships and mental illness as well as being a pretty substantial 70s body horror scifi film and also having a pretty shocking plot all in. Whilst it certainly pales in comparison to some of Cronenberg's other works, The Brood provides some interesting characters and some very 70s era special effects.

[Image: New World Pictures, et al]

Hani

Videodrome

"Videodrome" (1983, Canadian Film Development Corporation, Famous Players, Filmplan International, David Cronenberg) explores porn and how we view life in our advancingly technology-dependent world in an excellently (Rick Baker) gore-soaked way.

Max Renn (James Woods) is a TV executive for a cable channel. It's the 80s, VHS and Betamax are still shiny new technologies, and he thinks he's found the most interesting thing ever to show on TV: foreign snuff porn of questionable quality! The underground programme is called "Videodrome" and Renn is determined to get to the bottom of it. He has become sinisterly obsessed.

As his life becomes more entwined into the cult-like Videodrome lifestyle, his view on life changes and he begins to see things that he is not sure are real or not... Is he losing his mind or is he becoming part of a new reality? His femme fatale friend, Nicki (Debbie Harry of Blondie), also gets herself involved as she and Renn fall into the Videodrome trap together.

His searchings lead him to the hub of the technological cult, but has he gone too far?

This film was a slighlty different step for Cronenberg at the time and hinted towards where he would take his movies next. Videodrome manages to balance slightly obnoxious cerebral plot with a message about society's obsession with technology, with the confusing, but gory action his audience had come to expect. He manages to make a social comment on video and technology while also exploiting just that as his platform to do so. The film remains ever relevant and the effects make for undated, uncomfortable viewing.

[Image: FilmPlan International, et al]

Hani