Onyx reviews: Storm of the Century by Stephen King

There's a storm coming to Little Tall Island, Maine, home of Dolores Claiborne, and its name is Linoge. There's also a blizzard on the way, but that is the least of the residents' worries. Linoge (Colin Feore) shows up before the first snowflake falls and immediately murders an eighty year old woman. "Born in lust, turn to dust. Born in sin, come on in," he says as the reporter on the weather channel advises that a 'monster' low pressure area is approaching. After destroying the elderly woman with his cane, he sits back in her living room to wait.

"Give me what I want, and I'll go away." This mysterious phrase is a recurrent motif throughout the first two thirds of the story. Linoge is soon apprehended by the local Constable Mike Anderson (Tim Daly of Wings) and spends much of the tale behind bars, but it is clear that his influence extends far beyond his prison walls. Several other citizens of the island meet untimely fates in a variety of gruesome manners. The storm has descended, cutting the little island off from the mainland. Whatever happens over the next hours, the citizens will need to deal with on their own. The cavalry is not going to ride in to save the day.

But what does Linoge want? An astute reader may be able to guess, but this is not revealed until the third and final part of the tale. Without revealing what he wants, suffice to say that it requires a sacrifice on the part of the people of the island and the real meat of the story is the ensuing storm of social conflict.

Stephen King wrote Storm of the Century as an original screenplay, without having a contract in hand for its production. He originally visualized it as a novel, but because he was so driven by visual imagery in creating the story (Linoge, wearing his yellow gloves, back against the wall in his cell) he decided to write it as a screenplay. He switched from his usual Word 6 software to Final Draft, a screenwriting program. If the screenplay was never produced, which he thought was a real possibility because of the large cast and special effects requirements, he would convert it into a novel. The Pocket Books release of this screenplay, part of a massive advertising campaign to promote the expensive ABC miniseries, contains a 12-page introduction by King, discussing the genesis of the story, screenplay and miniseries, worth the price of admission alone.

As I write this review, the miniseries is set to begin its three-night run on television tonight, February 14th. It will continue tomorrow and finish up on the 18th, two hours each night. It faces heavy competition from The X-Files tonight and an important episode of ER on Thursday. King's previous miniseries, The Shining, did not garner impressive ratings numbers. Still, Storm of the Century has something going for it that all of the previous miniseries did not: This is a brand new story and few people will have read the screenplay before it airs. With The Shining, many viewers were watching a familiar story, one which had even been adapted to the screen previously.

The advance reviews for the miniseries have been mostly positive. There have been a couple of pans, but many reviewers have been glowing with praise for the story, the actors and the production. The press is not generally kind to King, so this hype bodes well for the success of the series. What's more, most of the reviews "get" the story. This is not a suspense tale about a blizzard—it is a morality play about making decisions and living with the consequences of those decisions. It is about the secrets that each community member holds close to themselves, unknown even to their closest friends and family, and what would happen if a stranger came on the scene, revealing these dark secrets publicly. What happens when a town changes from an assembly of individuals to a terrified, irrational mob.

Even as a screenplay, this is a very readable story. King has juiced up the descriptive parts of the screenplay with his usual humor and color. The instructions for the director and actors are written as one would find them in a novel. King clearly had a vivid image in his mind of how this story should look on the screen and this comes through in the screenplay. The movie's director, Craig Baxley, has been quoted as saying that they shot King's screenplay without significant modification, though how accurate this statement is remains to be seen until the miniseries hits the air.

Whether to watch the movie before reading the screenplay or vice versa is as unclear a decision as to which of the Desperation/The Regulators pair should be read first. I read the screenplay first, and will watch the movie about two weeks after having read the story. Some people may feel that this will spoil the movie. Others will feel that their enjoyment of the miniseries is enhanced by knowledge of the story. In either case, Linoge is coming to Little Tall Island and the residents are never going to forget this storm.