Storm of the Century is One of Stephen King’s Darkest Tales
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Storm of the Century shows how atmosphere, a great villain, and cast chemistry can create a classic.
Written by James "Crypticpsych” Lasome
April 22, 2011
Movie Trailer
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Release: February 14, 1999 (USA)
Directed by: Craig R. Baxley
Written by: Stephen King
Starring:
Tim Daly as Mike Anderson
Colm Feore as Andre Linoge
Deborah Farentino as Molly Anderson
Casey Siemazsko as Alton ‘Hatch’ Hatcher
Jeffrey DeMunn as Robbie Beals
"Your town is full of adulterers, pedophiles, thieves, gluttons, murderers, bullies, scoundrels, and covetous morons. And I know every last one of them." –Andre Linoge
On Little Tall Island, the small-town populace is getting ready for an atypical massive winter storm. Local news outlets seem to think that the storm is going to be biblically devastating once it combines with a secondary storm and wallops the area. Constable Mike Anderson and Town Manager Robbie Beals (Daly and DeMunn) are trying to get the town on the same page and ready for every possible contingency should the storm be as bad as the predictions dictate, worse, or better.
Meanwhile, across town, a man wearing jeans, a black winter coat, and a wool cap has viciously beaten a woman to death with his lion’s head cane. As Anderson and Beals discover the aftermath of the attack, the man (who simply sat down and waited to be found) taunts them with knowledge of their private lives he could never know and reveals his name is Andre Linoge (Feore). As he allows himself to be taken into custody, the entire town discovers that he knows all of their deepest secrets including abortions, assaults, and worse. Shortly after he’s been placed into his cell, strange events and murders begin to happen around the city, all marked by Linoge entering a trance in his cell and his repeated message scrawled near each event: “Give me what I want, and I’ll go away”. As the storm intensifies, the victims mount, and Linoge reveals his full plan, the town might soon wish that the revelation of their secrets and their compelling moral struggles were the least of their worries.
When most people think “Stephen King adaptation”, they think things like Carrie or The Shining: feature films based upon existing King works. However, King has also become a master of TV movies and miniseries, including such classics as Salem’s Lot and It. In the late 90s, King produced his first original teleplays specifically designed to be miniseries. Craig R. Baxley expertly directed both, the first being the 1999 project Storm of the Century. The film combines a believable small town with quite possibly the most underrated villain ever to appear in a Stephen King film.
The town of Little Tall as portrayed here is one of the more realistic (if stereotypical) small towns I’ve seen. Storm of the Century goes to great lengths to make it clear that the island’s inhabitants all know each other and have longstanding friendships. While there are many different characters, almost all of them are unique in some way and stand as fleshed-out, multidimensional pieces separate from each other and occupying specific places in the island hierarchy. When Linoge begins stripping away their “happy” façade, the viewer feels a little disgust at them but is also empathetic to the fact that they’ve basically been violated by this stranger.
The effects in Storm of the Century are also mostly well-realized. Any computer effects that
were used to create the storm itself are effective and above the level
of most Syfy-channel level computer effects. This being a made-for-TV
affair, blood and gore are pretty minimal. However, most of the kills
still are memorable and deeply chilling for how seriously the film
takes its violent moments and the concept that many of the victims and
perpetrators are, to a degree, helpless. About the only place the film
drops the ball here are the effects that display the true form of
Linoge. Just like with Children of the Corn and IT’s
endings, effects kind of harm the impact of what should be a chilling
revelatory sequence. However, unlike those other films, most of the
four-plus hour run time features better, more effective sequences that
tend to dull the memory of how weak that particular effect really is.
Also helping blunt the impact is just how stunning Colm Feore’s performance as Andre Linoge is only assisted by some interesting eye trickery and monstrous fangs. Combining the cunning knowledge of human nature of Hannibal Lecter with Dracula’s ability to control slaves, Feore makes nearly every word he says and gesture he makes drip with menace and evil. Put another way, what Alex De Large does for “Singin’ in the Rain” in A Clockwork Orange, Andre Linoge does with “I’m a Little Teapot” in this, turning a happy, positive song into something deeply unsettling. Although, with the exception of the initial cane kill, Linoge never touches any of his “victims”, his words and mannerisms as he exercises his “methods” provide an interesting added creepy touch. Coupled with a dash of relish and glee he gets from tormenting the town, Feore’s performance is instantly unforgettable. I love the character so much, I dressed as him for Halloween in college one year.
There are some flaws in Storm of the Century, though. One
of them is more the DVD’s fault. In its original airing, the miniseries
was three parts, spread over multiple nights. Here, the 4+ hour film is
basically cut in half, something that makes the runtime more
challenging to take in a sitting. In addition, the division between the
disc’s front and back is not on one of the film’s original division
points but instead right in the middle of a scene! More than that,
though, Storm of the Century falls victim to a pretty severe stumbling block of
many TV-movies… hammy overacting. In particular, our two main male
protagonists (the constable and town manager) are, at times, laughably
over the top. The manager carries that thread throughout the whole
movie and is, as a result, actually not as bad as the constable. Mike,
instead, starts out relatively understated only to WAY overplay his
role as the movie builds to its climax, hurting his character and, to a
small extent, Storm of the Century as a whole. That said, any deficiencies in this
aspect don’t take away from just how deeply creepy and frightening this
film is. All they really do is make Mike’s fate a little less able to
be empathetic about.
Overall, I think Storm of the Century is one of the most underrated King adaptations of all time. It’s not perfect, having mild flaws that are related to either its DVD or made-for-TV origins. None of those, however, are enough to diminish the believable small-town environment brought to its knees by a show-stopping villain and his encyclopedic knowledge of their transgressions. If you like The Mist or The Fog, this moral, supernatural take on a similar baseline story is definitely worth a look.
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