pumpktoberfest #23 - down with the king.

film: the dead zone
beer: southern tier pumking

since i'm a child of the 70's & 80's, celebrating pumpktoberfest without paying a visit to at least one story by one of the true kings of horror, stephen king, would be absolute blasphemy. with that in mind, for today's pumpktoberfest installment we're taking a look at the dead zone, the 1983 horror film based on one of his earlier novels. while i read a lot of king's books as a plucky teen, i never got around to reading the dead zone, so i was going in blind. it's one of the first few books of king's that was adapted into a film & was directed by david cronenberg, who's made a name for himself over the years with a number of largely-psychological horror films, films like scanners & the fly.

christopher walken stars as a new england schoolteacher named johnny smith & the film features brooke adams as sarah (his love interest), tom skerrit as the town sheriff & martin sheen as US senatorial candidate greg stillson. when the film begins, johnny's all in love with sarah & things are just peachy. one night he drops her off at her house & decides not to spend the night because "some things are worth waiting for." as he drives home in the rain in his sweet VW bug, a tractor-trailer approaches & when the driver starts falling asleep & jackknifes the truck, the trailer detaches, sending it hurtling toward johnny's car. he crashes straight into it & ends up in a coma. when he awakes, it's five years later. the good news? other than some trouble walking, he's in pretty good physical shape. the bad news? he's not worth waiting for, so sarah has moved on to someone else. the strange news? he's developed an ability to read peoples' pasts, presents & futures just by touching them.

he first discovers his special talent in the hospital when he touches a nurse & sees her house on fire & her daughter trapped inside. he tells her that it's not too late to save her daughter & when she hurries home, she finds that her house is indeed on fire, saving her daughter in the process. from that point on, word gets out around town that he has ESP & his doctor confirms it after johnny touches him & tells him that his mother, who he thought was lost in the war, is still alive, a fact that he later verifies. you might think that being able to see people's pasts, presents & futures would be a cool thing, but it instead starts driving him bonkers, as people start harrassing him about helping them with his power. by the time he first crosses paths with senatorial candidate greg stillson (sheen), you can tell that having ESP has taken its toll on him & when he learns that stillson's not a nice man & eventually sees stillson's future, he's forced to make a drastic decision.

although it's great watching a relatively young christopher walken, other than a twist at the end, it's not all that riveting of a film & as far as horror films go, it doesn't exactly qualify as horrifying. that's not even my main issue with the film though. my main issue's this: they make the "dead zone" into a completely different thing than in the book. in the film, the doctor describes it as his ability to alter the future; the book describes it as an area of johnny's brain that he can no longer access & one that eventually develops a tumor. that's more of a "dead zone" than what's going on in the film. i guess people like it though, as in 2002, it spawned a tv show that lasted for six seasons on the usa network starring anthony michael hall as johnny. i've never caught an episode but from what i can tell, it has an even different slant on the "dead zone" idea. in this case, i believe it referred to the period of anthony michael hall's career between weird science & the dead zone.

i'm totally down with the king, so i had myself a big ol' 22 oz bottle of southern tier pumking, brewed by southern tier brewing co, whilst watching the dead zone. southern tier has been brewing in lakewood, new york, a town seventy or so miles south of buffalo, since back in 2002. they put out a ton of quality beers, a number of which are available in 22 oz bottles. the pumking is a seasonal beer for them & one of their imperials, a line of beers that includes coffee, chocolate & creme brulee stouts. since i'm sort of cheap, i often avoid the big bottles but last year, i kicked off our inaugural pumpktoberfest season with a bottle of the pumking. over the rest of the season, i had myself quite a few of them, a practice that's continued into this year.

out of all the pumpkin beers i've ever tried, it's by far my favorite. while it tastes just as good this year as it did in past years, compared to past years' pumkings, the 2010 batch has an increased amount of alcohol, coming in at a pleasantly impressive 9.0% ABV. it's made with 2-row pale malt, caramel malt, pureed pumpkin & two kinds of hops along with spices & when you open the bottle it gives off an absolutely lovely smell. it pours with a clear, orange amber color & tastewise, it's well-balanced, with the pumpkin taste up front & a host of spices rounding out the flavor. it's a great flavor, one that's sweet & pumpkiny with a bit of hops. you notice the alcohol but overall it's highly drinkable & it's just a damn good pumpkin beer, truly the king of pums.