Great King Flick: WHY Didn't He Write a Book???
A Customer Review by JordanJasper
For me, there's a definite irony attached to this project, as far as King is concerned. Most of his novels have not been very well adapted to the big screen (or small screen) during his long career. This likely has more to do with those who try to direct, produce, and adapt King's work than with the source-work itself. Even "Carrie," "Misery," and Kubrick's "The Shining" (the best adaptations of his material, so far) were not quite as good as the books. As a longtime King admirer, it's been a bit of a frustration to see film-versions of his work consistently fail to dazzle.
With 'Storm of the Century,' however, we have a story from the mind of King that is extremely effective and resonant onscreen...BUT HE DIDN'T WRITE IT IN NOVEL-FORM! Hence the irony. This is one bit of King's imagination I would love to have seen fleshed-out in a massive, juicy book. The film is genuinely spooky. The story is full of suspense. The setting is both claustrophic and wildly elemental. The characters are compelling. The performances are very good. Best of all is the premise. Here, King essentially seeks to offer a very spine-tingling explanation for the infamously mysterious (and never solved) disappearances of hundreds of colonists in 17th century Roanoke.
In this tale, King offers a truly chilling villain in Andre Linoge, who is apparently some sort of ancient demon or sorcerer who, every few hundred years, needs to force some community of human beings to turn on each other and freely offer-up one of their small children to him. What Linoge does with the chosen child is only hinted-at in the film, but it seems that, as the sorcerer's body becomes ravaged by extreme age, he eventually "possesses" the child and is made young and semi-immortal again.
There are several obstacles to the fulfillment of Linoge's black magic, however, and these are the things that make for a great story & plot. First, Linoge must apparently cull the chosen child from an isolated community (here, it's "Little Tall Island," off the Maine coast). Then, he must infiltrate the community and terrorize it, sowing confusion and shame through threats and the revelation of the townsfolks' own, hidden secrets. Finally, he must essentially trick them (Shirley Jackson "Lottery"-style) into agreeing to offer one of their children in order to spare the entire community from a complete destruction that is never defined (also quite spooky). Linoge's mantra is: "Give me what I want and I'll go away." In this case, the viewer is made aware that the previous community singled-out for demonic harassment (17th-century Roanoke Island) apparently did ~not~ comply with his wishes, and none were ever seen again.
That, however, is just one bonus layer of intrigue and "coolness" about King's overall tale, and how it's delineated here. The meat of the film is the gradual unraveling of the entire town, which is cut-off from any chance of outside help by a tremendous winter storm obviously fueled by the powers of Linoge. As the secrets and vulnerabilities of one townsperson after another are exposed by the creature, the sense of doom grows more palpable and unsettling. Tim Daly ('Wings') effectively plays Mike Anderson, the local sheriff who stands as King's upright, good-hearted Everyman, trying to keep the town sane under the yoke of the evil oppressor, even as the storm worsens. In trying to protect the others in town, however, Anderson overlooks the deeper, more personal horror that Linoge has in store for *him*. I won't spoil it.
A strong story, strong plotting, strong cinematography, and strong performances make this an absolute must-have for King fans, and a winner for any fan of contemporary horror. Light-years better than the messy "It," "Shining," and "Rose Red" TV-productions, "Storm of the Century" features the King imagination at its near-best, accurately captured on film. If ONLY it were also one of his novels!