POP UP CINEMA BRIGHTON

DAVID CRONENBERG & STEPHEN KINGS'S
THE DEAD ZONE

DIRECTOR: David Cronenberg​

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STARRING: Christopher Walken, Brooke Adams, Tom Skerritt, Herbert Lom, Martin Sheen, Anthony Zerbe, and Colleen Dewhurst.

From acclaimed body-horror master David Cronenberg (The Fly, Videodrome, Crash, Scanners, Dead Ringers, etc.) comes this superlative Stephen King adaptation—an elegant fusion of horror, relationship drama, and psychological-political thriller.

Blending genres with ease, Cronenberg casts Christopher Walken (The Deer Hunter, Catch Me If You Can) as Johnny Smith, a schoolteacher who survives a devastating car crash and awakens from a coma with psychic abilities. Suddenly burdened with harrowing visions triggered by the lightest touch, Johnny must not only navigate his transformed life but also confront the painful reality that his former lover, played by Brooke Adams (Days of Heaven, Invasion of the Body Snatchers), is now involved with the dangerous and ruthlessly ambitious politician Greg Stillson (Martin Sheen—Apocalypse Now, The West Wing), a man determined to become President.

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A prescient and highly entertaining supernatural thriller, The Dead Zone features an excellent, nuanced performance from Walken and stands as one of Cronenberg’s most gripping, bleak, relevant, and unexpectedly romantic films. Here the director steps away from his signature body-horror terrain to focus on the terrors of the mind, resulting in one of the most poignant, powerful, and strangely humane works of his career.

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In what is usually the festivity free “dead zone” of January, treat yourself to a Friday night taking in this wonderfully wintry New England mood piece, stacked with pulpy thrills, elevated by the inspired pairing of one of America’s great directors with one of its most entertaining storytellers.