The Dead Zone, which has become a tremendous saga, beginning in 1979 when Stephen King first published the novel.

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     The Dead Zone, which has become a tremendous saga, beginning in 1979 when Stephen King first published the novel. Since then it has been transformed into a movie directed by David Cronenberg with the same title, and finally as a weekly series just recently on the USA network. Much like all works that make their way to the screen, it seems to have lost a little something in the process, but otherwise carries the traditional Stephen King style. Scaring the reader/viewer, and keeping them on the edge of their seat until the startling conclusion.

     The book and movie parallel throughout most of the plot. In both, Johnny is a victim of a terrible car accident on the way home from the carnival where he had spent the night having fun with his girlfriend Sarah. He is transferred to a private hospital, where he awakens five years after the accident to realize that he lost all he had before, and gained a terrible curse, the power to see what the future held. When asked why Johnny felt as he did, why he didn’t find himself blessed for the mere fact of being alive, he smugly replies, “"Bless me"? Do you know what God did for me? He threw an 18-wheeled truck at me and bounced me into nowhere for five years! When I woke up, my girl was gone, my job was gone, my legs are just about useless... Blessed me?! God's been a real sport to me!”

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     What both works truly revolve around is not the recovery from a coma, but rather the new found “powers” associated with said recovery. Johnny’s first encounter with these powers came with the touching of Dr. Sam Weizak’s hand. He demands to see his wallet, stating “There’s a picture of your mother in your wallet, I need to have it.” The doctor, hands over his wallet and Johnny instantly flips past the typical plastic photo compartment of the wallet to the very back finding a well hidden laminated picture of the doctor’s mother. He holds the picture between his ...

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