David Cronenberg's Brilliant Stephen King Movie Is Available To Watch For Free

There are a lot of Stephen King books out there — and about as many movies based on those King-ly books. The writer earns his title as a horror master not just through craft, but prolificity. He's got multiple works that could contend for "scariest book ever written," but quite a few that aren't so great either.

If you're preparing for a King deep dive, with movies or TV, consider starting with the cream of the crop. One story that's absolutely in that cream is King's novel "The Dead Zone," which fellow horror master David Cronenberg adapted as a movie in 1983. For added convenience, "The Dead Zone" is now streaming for free (with ads) on Pluto TV.

Now, Cronenberg is synonymous with body horror, but "The Dead Zone" is no gross-out picture; the violence happens only in spats. What makes it Cronenbergian is that is about a man undergoing a physical transformation and delves into the world of ESP similar to Cronenbrg's earlier "Scanners." The story's lead is Johnny Smith (Christopher Walken) who awakens from a five-year coma and discovers he has clairvoyant powers; he can see a person's past and future by touching their skin.

The story is set in Maine and New Hampshire as most King tales are, but it was filmed in Cronenberg's native Toronto. Wintery Canada stands in convincingly for King's dreary New England; two locations, subtly different but with enough overlap to not compromise each other, reflect how well Cronenberg and King's visions melded together. (Even if King didn't like the first "Dead Zone" script.)

Is "The Dead Zone" the best Stephen King movie? Its only fair competition is "Carrie" and "The Shawshank Redemption." "The Shining" is moreso a Stanley Kubrick film, and I think King would agree with that. And though its 50th anniversary is in striking distance, "The Dead Zone" remains the most politically relevant — and thus most chilling — story King has written.

In the first act of the movie, Johnny helps local sheriff George Bannerman (Tom Skerritt) catch a serial killer. "Psychic helping small-town cops solve cases" is already a sturdy premise; it's easy to see how "The Dead Zone" later became a six-season TV procedural (even if it did end abruptly). But that killer is far from the greatest evil in the story.

That would be Greg Stillson (Martin Sheen), a small-town politician with big dreams — presidential ones. An independent conservative running on a third-party ticket, Stillson is an insincere populist. His campaign photo depicts him in a construction worker's hard hat yet he cuts backroom deals and tips his hand by claiming to represent both the poor and rich in equal measure. Still, his crazy ideas (trapping air pollution inside balloons or invading the Middle East for oil) and crowd-stirring charisma propel him up the political ladder.

Many, King himself included, have compared Stillson to our current President Donald Trump. Reading "The Dead Zone" now, one can feel like King could see the future as Johnny did. In truth, though, he was writing about his own fears of the time. "I was sort of convinced it was possible that a politician would arise who was so outside the mainstream and so willing to say anything that he would capture the imaginations of the American people," King explained.

The "Dead Zone" book (published in 1979) lays the contemporary politics on a bit more (including a Jimmy Carter cameo). Stillson is an exaggerated Ronald Reagan, who told a destabilized country he would bring "Morning in America." That "morning" looked like tax cuts for the richest, a slashed social safety net, a racist drug war, and imperialism abroad. Like Stillson, Reagan wore a phony grin that couldn't cover the malice in his eyes and justified his actions by saying God would sort it all out in the end. Really, trickle-down economics is only slightly less insane than Stillson's policies.

King, born in 1947, was alive to experience the assassination of John F. Kennedy. JFK's saintly reputation today doesn't exactly measure up to what he accomplished, but his death was the moment that the post-World War II American stability crashed and burned, which led to the tumultuous period of American politics in which we currently reside. 

The challenge King imposed on himself when writing "The Dead Zone" was to make Lee Harvey Oswald a hero.The third act of "The Dead Zone" kicks off when Johnny shakes Stillson's hand at a campaign rally. He discovers that, if Stillson does become President, he'll start a nuclear war (in 1979 and 1983, such a war seemed much more possible than it does today). Feeling that only he can change the future, Johnny decides he must assassinate Stillson.

"The Dead Zone" is streaming on Pluto TV.