The Dead Zone

Variety by

David Cronenberg turns The Dead Zone into an accomplished psychological thriller.

Chicago Reader by Dave Kehr

By no means a bad film, just a disappointingly bland and superficial one.

The New York Times by Janet Maslin

A well-acted drama more eerie than terrifying, more rooted in the occult than in sheer horror.

Boston Globe by Jay Carr

It never really chills you, but then it never insults you, either, and it's more affecting than you expect any film based on a Stephen King novel to be. [22 Oct 1983]

The Globe and Mail (Toronto) by Jay Scott

The Dead Zone, from the book by Stephen King, a horror novelist whose prolific output is the scariest thing about him, is academic filmmaking all the way, a crafty Establishment tour de force. [21 Oct 1983]

Empire by Kim Newman

It has some of that episodic ‘compressed miniseries’ feel which a lot of King pictures get stuck with (the book was later redone as a TV serial with Anthony Michael Hall) but still manages a lot of powerful material.

Chicago Sun-Times by Roger Ebert

The Dead Zone does what only a good supernatural thriller can do: It makes us forget it is supernatural.