Dead Zone

Music by Michael Kamen

 

 

 

 

 

Dead Zone (A Time Dead Zone, 1983) was one of the few films of David Cronenberg without music of his usual collaborator Howard Shore. The screenplay is one of many based on novel by Stephen King but Dead Zone stands above the flood of King adaptations that came after Carrie and The Shining.

Christopher Walken is a sensitive with the power to predict the future in his involuntary insights and realizes that the next president can lead the world to destruction in a new world war. The invariably tragic course of Cronenberg's films is perfectly assimilated by Micahel Kamen´s music. That is clear right in Opening Titles, and the trail follows this cold dramatic line, with the predominance of strings in most tracks. The result is a "lyrical thriller", one of the most discreet works of the composer. Also noteworthy are themes as the dramatic Lost Love or the delicate circular harp of School Days. The most dissonant passages are reserved for Greg Stillson's (Martin Sheen) political campaign and Johnny's (Christopher Walken) discovering the danger of a nuclear conflict. Dead Zone can easily be placed among the most remarkable scores of Michael Kamen, of a moment when soundtracks of elaborate symphonic writing started to share room with electronic resources.