Last night I had the pleasure of seeing a Stephen King double bill on the big screen. First up was The Dead Zone which is an old favourite. It's Cronenberg, directing Christopher Walken in a Stephen King movie produced by Debra Hill. There's no bad there.

It's also a film where you can see where the idea comes from. In fact it's even stated out loud by Walken to Herbert Lom -

"If you could go back in time, knowing what you know now, would you kill Hitler?"

It's an oldie but a goodie. Everyone has had the "would you kill baby Hitler?" conversation, it's an interesting moral dilemma.

The genius of King is the way he takes this old chestnut and then works backwards from it and weaves in, not only supernatural elements but the fabric of politics and Americana. It is substantive, character and ideas driven horror that also comments on the country in which it's set. I like to think it's why we're drawn to good horror and why so many of the people to have written horror or made horror films are, generally, intelligent, thoughtful and interesting people. That is, until the Eli Roth generation.