Questions about the film "The Dead Zone" (Spoilers)

Cafe Society
1

OK, in the movie “The Dead Zone,” which is an adaptation of a book by Stephen King, there is that evil politician character, Greg Stillson (Martin Sheen) who is a corrupt asshole who uses blackmail against his opponents.

In one scene, Stillson meets with some journalist who’s been writing negative things about him. He sneaks into the guy’s office late at night. He has his hired goon Sonny with him. Sonny literally shoves the journalist, hard, committing battery against him. Then the two of them blackmail him into withholding his negative stories about Stillson by showing the journalist pictures of him having an affair with a woman. Then, Stillson says that if he still publishes the article, he’ll have Sonny “take his head off.”

How is this realistic? Why wouldn’t the guy just go to the police? Stillson could be charged with assault and battery and probably more.

Later, Johnny Smith (Christopher Walken) uses his psychic power to foretell Stillson’s future. He grabs his hand during a political rally, and a vision comes to him of Stillson - as the President - in some kind of presidential office, wearing a robe or smoking jacket or something, ordering a General to put his hand on a scanning screen to activate a red button, which he pushes to authorize a nuclear strike. His goon Sonny is there with them. Interestingly, after the General scans his hand, Sonny says to Stillson “Complete the sequence, Mr. President,” as if HE is actually behind it all. Then after he pushes the button, Stillson shakes Sonny’s hand and says, “Thank you, Sonny.”

This weird dynamic between the two of them makes me think there’s more to it, in the book, that the movie doesn’t touch on. Namely, it leads me to wonder if this evil Sonny character is actually “behind” Stillson, controlling him somehow. That last scene suggests that Sonny is actually telling the President what to do, more than simply an advisor but more like some sort of intensely charismatic character that has the guy in his grasp. Am I off the mark here or is there something to this theory?

Another question - Johnny, after seeing this vision, decides to assassinate Stillson. He grabs a bolt-action hunting rifle from behind a cabinet, and then, curiously, takes out what seems to be a Swiss Army knife and begins unscrewing the magazine assembly. Why would he do this?

Anyone else have anything else to say about this movie? I really loved it. I think it’s one of the best horror movies of all time. David Cronenberg would go on to direct another one of my favorite movies, Crash.

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Bumping this in the hope that someone, somewhere, might know.

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As to the Stilson-Sonny dynamic, I’d just say it’s the relationship between an appreciative aspiring super-villian & his loyal henchman. “Complete the sequence, Mr. President” comes across to me more as Sonny cheering his boss on than giving him an order. As for “Thank you, Sonny” - well, if more super-villians were as appreciative, there’d be less henchman treachery.

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Yeah, there’s nothing of svengali-like in their relationship in the book, IIRC. Sonny is just a goon.

5

Well, the intimidation scene is actually a composite of two similar scenes in the novel. The blackmail-with-pictures is early on in Stillson’s political career, sometime in the late sixties as I recall, and presumably much more compelling than in 1983, when the film adaptation came out. Heck, nowadays the pics could be slapped up on the Internet and barely anyone would notice.

As for the Sonny advising Stillson on the launch procedure (which itself is pure hokum), i just figured he was there to explain the procedure to Stillson, which in turn explains it to the audience. Otherwise it just looks like Stillson and the general (! - not the secretary of defense?) were getting some kinda futuristic manicure.

If I’ve a complaint about the 1983 film, it’s that certain characters recur for no good reason. Sonny, for example, is Stillson’s goon in his grassroots days. There’s no reason for him to later appear in a role that implies he’s Stillson’s chief of staff or defense secretary or something, except that he’s familiar to the audience. Similarly, there was no real reason for the Brooke Adams character to be a participant in Stillson’s campaign, nor for it to be her child at the movie’s climax. It struck me as contrived.

Plus I was distracted by spotting all the Canadian actors.

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Yup, The Dead Zone was a good movie, and an even better book. The fairground scene in the book is still etched in my mind, along with Johnny’s therapeutic sessions after coming out of the coma…esp. the bit where he is imagining different objects, and establishes he may have a Dead Zone.

I agree with the other posters, Sonny is no more than a much-appreciated loyal servant.

7

It would have been very much like King to make Sonny a supernatural puppetmaster like Randall Flagg in some incarnations, but in this novel, he didn’t; Sonny is a very minor character and does not appear at all in Smith’s vision of a Stillson-engendered nuclear holocaust.

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Journalists are just people. IRL, some journalists are brave, some are easily intimidated; it’s not a stretch to play it that way in fiction. I recall a scene in Hoffa where a journalist is about to publish an expose on the Teamsters; he kills the story on receiving a guy’s dick-and-balls in a jar.

Besides, in addition to physical threats, Stillson had personal dirt on him.

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It’s been a long time since I read the book or saw the movie, but I was about to bring up the Randall Flagg thing.
I believe King wrote The Dead Zone before he wrote The Stand, and hadn’t fully developed the Randall Flagg character. The idea of “Big Evil” recurring throughout history might have only been kicking around in the back of his mind.

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It’s an interesting slant, but I don’t think Stillson needed any demonic influences; he was a nasty enough piece of work as it was! :slight_smile:

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I don’t know what a magazine assembly is, but in the book, Johnny took the rifle apart so it would fit into a briefcase, so he could sneak it into city hall.

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That sounded kinda snarky, didn’t it? What I meant was I don’t know if the magazine assembly is a logical place to start when you’re taking apart a rifle.

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It seems like he didn’t take the rifle apart, just wrapped it up in cloth or something and took it on the bus with him.

Another weird thing - Greg Stillson has a Southern accent in most of the movie, but in the vision of him as the President launching the missiles, he has no trace of that accent.

14

Come on, fess up…what are you getting at, AT? :smiley:

I tell ya, I hated Greg Stillson, for the way he treated that dog when he was out selling bibles in his early days. I’d have shot him for that alone, never mind threatening to start a nuclear war! :slight_smile:

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And who would vote for a politician who’s followed everywhere he goes by a guy in a leather trenchcoat?

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That is odd. It’d be pretty hard to wrap a rifle in a cloth and not be conspicuous. “Rifle? Um, no, it’s a really long loaf of French bread. Yeah, that’s it. It’s bread. See ya!”

Or maybe they filmed it both ways and screwed up when they put the movie together.

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Yeah, that was kind of weak. In the book, Sonny ambushed the journalist alone*, first threatening to cut off his circulation and give him brain damage, then telling him how easy it would be to burn down his house, maim his wife, or kidnap his little boy. And presumably, this could be done more with more expedience than the reporter going to the cops.

Also, IIRC, it was not the reporter who was photographed with his mistress. That was some local elected official who was thus convinced not to seek reelection. But perhaps I don’t RC?

*back in the day when people never looked in the back seat before getting in the car. And probably didn’t lock the car door, either.