'The Dead Zone' stays true to King's novel

I recently scratched another Saturn Award winner for Best Horror Film off of my list of movies to watch, and this time around, it was “The Dead Zone,” which received a Saturn Award in 1983.
This movie, which was released in October 1983 and is based on Stephen King’s 1979 novel, was very entertaining. Starring Christopher Walken and Martin Sheen, this movie stayed very true to the novel, which I read a year or so ago. In a nutshell, it’s about a schoolteacher, who falls into a coma after a traffic accident only to awaken five years later with the psychic ability to predict the future.
One interesting bit of trivia about this movie and King’s novel is that they are loosely based on the life of Peter Hurkos, a famous psychic who claims to have acquired his powers after falling off a ladder and hitting his head. Hurkos, who died in 1988, appeared on The Tonight Show three times and numerous publications reported his exploits, including Time, Newsweek, Life, Reader’s Digest, Playboy and The National Enquirer.
Before watching it a few days ago, I’d never seen the film version of “The Dead Zone,” and I was surprised to see that Martin Sheen was in this movie. This makes the second Saturn Award-winning horror movie that he’d been in up to that point. He also starred in “The Little Girl Who Lived Down the Lane,” which won a Saturn Award for Best Horror Film in 1977. In both “The Dead Zone” and “The Little Girl Who Lived Down the Lane,” Sheen plays “The Bad Guy.” In “The Dead Zone,” he’s a crazed politician, who would eventually lead the world into a nuclear war if elected President. In “The Little Girl Who Lived Down the Lane,” he’s the weird neighbor who takes an unwholesome interest in a teenage girl who lives down the street from him.
From here, it’s on to the 1984 Saturn Award Winner for Best Horror Film, “Gremlins.” I’m sure that I’ve seen this movie, but it’s been a while. This is the first of the Saturn Award winners that I can actually remember when it was first released. If I’m not mistaken, I was in the third grade, and I can distinctly remember the media build-up to this controversial movie that gave birth to the PG-13 rating.