Though it continues the tradition of interminable made-for-TV Stephen King adaptions, Storm of the Century is actually not an adaption at all. As far as I know, the screenplay for this miniseries was not based on a book; rather it was intended to be fashioned out of the televised medium. Call it Stephen King's crack at original scriptwriting. And initially, I would have to say that he did a fairly good job with this movie. The movie is, as previously stated, incredibly long..... 247 minutes to be exact. That's four hours and seven minutes of your life, not including the hour it takes for the combined bathroom and food breaks in addition to the mandatory 30 minute reprieve to watch your favorite evening sitcom.
The way Storm of the Century began, I almost felt that this would be the greatest four hours I would ever spend watching a movie or miniseries. Boy, did I screw up. Don't get me wrong, Storm of the Century has its moments, but does it really have to be SO FUCKING LONG?! There are some very cool parts to this show, but they're so spaced out over this four hour endurance match that you could hire a blind epileptic monkey on speed to do the editing on this beast and odds are you wouldn't lose anythying important. Often times I would whip out my penis and wave it at passer-bys just to pass the time between the good scenes.
So it's a long show, and you know that. How about the acting? Incidentally, the only actor worth mentioning is the one with a name that sounds like a French superhero-- Colm Feore. He plays Andre Linoge, the mysterious stranger that visits some small island town during the worst snowstorm in its history, wreaking havoc as he goes. Simply put, Feore plays a creepy evil demon-guy. It would do a lot of movies and tv series some good to enlist actors who can portray bad guys with the panache that Feore exhibits. He was so fantastic as Andre Linoge that I rooted for him throughout the entire movie. I wanted him to kill every last person in that stupid inbred town. Whether that happens or not, I'll leave that up to you to find out. Let's just say I had to be emotionally consoled at the end.
Oh, before I forget, I need to mention a few things about Tim Daly, who plays Constable Mike Anderson. ("Constable" is apparently just a fancy term for "A cop is so fucking useless in this town that I have to work as a grocer in the town shoppe") Honestly, when Linoge comes to town and beats the literal brains and eyes out of this poor little old lady, the townspeople seem to be less concerned with the old woman and more shocked to see Anderson put down the cantaloupes and pick up a service revolver. My holy God, life must be slow in this town. Anyway, perhaps it's me, but whenever I see Tim Daly, I think of Wings, that moderately long-running series on USA in the early 90s. Ever since the show was cancelled, Daly has done little more with his life than appear in TV miniseries as some wife abuser or horny high school substitute teacher. Actually, he's not that bad in Storm of the Century, but then again, I already have Tim Daly emblazoned into my brain as the owner of Sandpiper Airlines, Joe Hackett. I bet I'm not the only one, either. Sucks to be haunted by the past... Sigh, I guess you'll always be Joe to me, Tim.
If you havent pieced the story together yet, here you are: A small coastal town becomes enveloped in the worst winter storm in history, yet the townsfolk's problems are only compounded by the mysterious appearance of some weird, easy-talkin', skullcap wearin', cane with a wolfhead haulin' super enigmatic man. This dude spends the first half of the movie tearing this poor little nobody town a new asshole, and then decides in the last half to tell the people exactly what it is that he wants. When I think about it, Storm of the Century is almost like two separate stories: one about mortality and one about morality. The morality comes into play at the end, when the demon Linoge declares that he wants one of the town's eight children to raise as his own, and that if the town doesn't choose one for him, he'll kill them all. Obviously, I sat on my futon chanting "deliberate, deliberate, yes that's it, deliberate some more, don't come to a decision, yes, delay some more, that's it" in forlorn hopes that Linoge would return and wipe these little bitches from the Earth. Of course, I was denied. Oops, I guess I just kinda blew the ending. Eh, not like it's unpredictable or anything. And the plot twist that occurs after that one is even MORE predictable. And after the second big ending plot twist, the movie forgets that it has to end, and just kinda trails on, like the stench of a fart long after its expulsion. How appropriate a simile for the last half of this movie. |
