One story beat from a new Stephen King TV adaptation serves as the perfect reminder to watch a forgotten 89% RT thriller that is also based on the author’s work. The movie is relatively old as it came out in 1983, but it still easily ranks among some of the better big-screen takes on Stephen King’s books.
Almost every single year, a new set of Stephen King adaptations is scheduled to come out on both the big and small screens. 2025 has been no exception. However, what makes the ongoing year relatively different from its predecessors is that it has already seen a fair share of critically successful Stephen King adaptations.
Movies, like The Life of Chuck and The Monkey, were widely appreciated as compelling adaptations of Stephen King stories, while even a new show based on the author’s five-year-old novel mostly earned optimistic reviews from viewers and critics. Interestingly, the show in question also adopts a familiar story beat that seems reminiscent of another epic but slightly obscure Stephen King movie.
The Dead Zone Is Another Great Psychic Stephen King Story Like The Institute
The Movie Remains Lesser-Known Despite Being Critically Acclaimed
Stephen King movie adaptations, like The Shining, The Shawshank Redemption, Stand By Me, and The Green Mile, remain incredibly popular decades after their release, and deservedly so. However, there is one film based on the author’s work that, despite having an impressive critical rating, remains quite obscure.
1983’s The Dead Zone, which is based on Stephen King’s novel of the same name, stars Christopher Walken as the main lead. When the movie first premiered, it was hailed as one of the better adaptations of the King of Horror’s works and currently has an above-average Rotten Tomatoes score of 89%.
Although the movie falls short of being as epic as some of the best adaptations of Stephen King’s novels, it perfectly captures the author’s original vision and delivers a cerebral blend of psychological horror and political intrigue. Like the original book, it focuses on Johnny Smith, a man who develops the ability to see the past, present, and future of an individual’s life by merely touching them.
Similar to the original book, the movie adaptation does not unfold like a straightforward thriller. Instead, using Johnny Smith’s psychic abilities as a narrative device, it dabbles with many intriguing ideas surrounding the consequences of messing with the future and the metaphorical implications of the “killing baby Hitler” thought experiment.
The Dead Zone & The Institute’s Psychic Stories Share A Similar Political Plot
Both Feature Characters With Precognition Powers
In The Dead Zone‘s final arc, Johnny Smith has a vision when he shakes hands with Greg Stillson, a third-party candidate for the United States Senate. The vision reveals that after becoming President, Stillson will order a pre-emptive nuclear strike. Realizing how destructive the future event could be, Smith eventually sets out to stop him before it is too late.
Did You Know: The Dead Zone was the first Stephen King story that unfolded in the fictional town of Castle Rock, which later became the primary setting of Cujo, Stand by Me, and several other Stephen King works.
MGM+’s adaptation of Stephen King‘s The Institute introduces a similar story beat, where a facility takes the help of young children with precognition abilities to predict potential future calamities. To prevent these future events from happening, the facility then forces children with telepathic and telekinetic powers to carry out assassinations in the present world.
