The Dead Zone
Celibacy is not worth it, it leads to gruesome deaths.
A teacher with a loving girlfriend goes on a date and drops her off at home. He is not willing to stay the night, saying “some things are worth waiting for”, so he gets back home.
He gets in a car crash, and when he wakes up, 5 years have passed. Coincidentally or not, he can now see into the future when touching people.
In his coma years, his darling has married and has a kid, but he harbours no bad feelings for them. He uses his powers to solve a string of murders, which make him a celebrity and force him to become an hermit.
He moves away, and does private tutoring with wealthy patrons. After predicting his pupil would drown, he manages to talk him out of the trip and saves him. This makes him realise he is being selfish for not using his powers for good.
After meeting a politician and realising he will lead to World War 3, he sets out to kill him, rationalising that’s what time machines would be used for.
He fails to kill him, but succeeds in exposing as a fraud after he uses a baby as a human shield (from our protagonist’s darling, even). He doesn’t survive, but World War 3 is averted.
Note that the scumbag president is played by Michael Sheen, and the teacher by Christopher freaking Walker. Hot Damn!
Mainstream Cronenberg is still brilliant. In a way, this is the reverse slasher. The whole plot would be avoided if the main character did in fact have sex before marriage. But World War 3 would happen. Decisions…
This is my place for ramblings about sequences of images that exploit the human visual limitation know as persistence of vision.