This article spoils some plot points from Stephen King’s Storm of the Century.
A simple summary of the Storm of the Century miniseries reads like an AI-generated response to the prompt “Write me a new Stephen King story.” Residents of a small town in Maine must deal with a mysterious outside presence that forces them to confront their secrets and fears. It’s a description that could loosely be applied to ‘Salem’s Lot, The Mist, It, and various other works that have made King the most successful horror writer and an occasional punching bag for satirists everywhere.
While Storm of the Century drew big ratings when it ran on ABC over three nights in the winter of 1999, that description helps explain why it has become somewhat forgotten in the years that followed. It lacked the prestige of previous King miniseries like The Stand, the overt horror of It, and even the kitschy (i.e. awful) charms of something like The Langoliers. Storm of the Century certainly fits into King’s oeuvre, but it does so a bit too neatly in ways that keep it from standing out at a glance. It was also an original King screenplay rather than an adaptation of one of his best-selling novels, which limited its cultural reach. You only need to look at King’s Twin Peaks-inspired 1991 miniseries Golden Years to see how easily such projects can be lost in the chronological shuffle.
Yet, so much of what makes Storm of the Century special can be attributed to its original screenplay status. It’s not just the best Stephen King miniseries (and the author’s favorite miniseries); it’s one of King’s greatest works regardless of medium.
Storm of The Century Is Warm Blanket, Slow Burn Stephen King Horror
Storm of the Century follows the residents of Little Tall Island, Maine (the same town featured in Dolores Claiborne) as they prepare for an incoming storm. There is a somewhat unnerving casualness to their approach to this event that quickly establishes this place and its people. Like the lifetime residents of Florida who prepare for hurricanes with an extra case of beer, the people of Little Tall Island have been here before. The Waffle Houses will remain open.
Two events soon complicate their routine. The first is the increasingly popular projections that suggest this upcoming storm will be a big one. The biggest in, say, 100 years or so? Perhaps, but let’s not jump to conclusions.
The second is the arrival of a mysterious man who – in the opposite of the “save the cat” trope – quickly murders a sweet old woman. After submitting to police custody, the man identifies himself as André Linoge (Colm Feore). The townspeople soon learn horrifying details about the stranger. He knows secrets about them that nobody should know, he can manipulate their perception of reality, and, when asked what he wants, Linoge only replies “Give me what I want, and I’ll go away.”
What does André Linoge want? That question isn’t answered until the last 45 minutes of this nearly four-and-a-half-hour miniseries. On the rare occasions when Storm of the Century is discussed online, it is often criticized for its runtime and pacing. The prospect of watching Linoge taunt increasingly befuddled townsfolk for nearly four hours with minimal progress to the series’ initial narrative hook is simply unappealing to many. While the series is broken up into three, movie-like chunks, that’s still a far cry from the more modern eight-plus episode streaming series designed to encourage binges. For that matter, Storm of the Century lacks the abundancy and urgency of the cliffhangers seen in some of King’s other, more famous miniseries.
To be fair, those who find such King stories – and similar small-town mysteries set against snowy backdrops – to be warm blankets will be more than happy to simply let this magnificent premise and location wash over them. That’s to say nothing of the stellar cast. If names like Jeffrey DeMunn, Becky Ann Baker, and Steve Rankin give you the vapors, you may want to take the necessary precautions before settling in with this hall-of-fame collection of character actors who feel like they were born from a Stephen King novel.
Those not destined to love such things must realize that Storm of the Century’s slower pacing is part of the reason why it succeeds where other King movies and series fail. All that extra time allows Storm of the Century to explore the subtler moments of King’s storytelling style that often go overlooked.
Storm of the Century Absolves Stephen King of His Worst Writing Sins
While I hesitate to use the word “subtle” to describe a writer who regularly portrays school bullies as switchblade-wielding testosterone tornados, there is an essential humanity to King’s work that has resonated with millions. We sometimes see King adaptations that are in such a hurry to get to the big scares the author’s works are often boiled down to that they breeze past the smaller moments that fuel those scares. Ninety minutes just isn’t enough time to capture that aspect of his work, and even some of the other multi-hour miniseries feel practically apologetic for the moments when you aren’t being outright scared or allowed to look deeper into the mystery box.
Comparatively, King has described Storm of the Century as a “novel for television.” There’s a big difference between that and a novel reworked for television. King utilizes every minute of that four-plus hour runtime to capture these people, this place, and this scenario. There is no need to keep cutting the more flavorful segments of a story because they don’t advance the plot despite the fact they contribute to it.
At the same time, King doesn’t succumb to the same superfluousness that sometimes dogs his most epic works. Yes, Storm of the Century revels in the intrigue of seeing how Constable Mike Anderson (Tim Daly) will react to Linoge exposing Jack Carver’s seemingly unforgivable past actions. No, it does not force you to endure unexpected orgies or detailed descriptions of a character’s masturbation tactics. With Storm of the Century, King displays the remarkable ability to reign himself in without sacrificing the more fascinating ideas he unearths during his dives off the deep end.
It’s remarkable how writing for television seemingly cured King of some of his worst (writing) habits. Consider the Linoge character. Unlike other King villains who are bolstered by mystery and hindered by the fact we must eventually come to understand them, Linoge remains a constant terror. Granted, that is partially due to Colm Feore’s brilliant ability to portray the character as equally playful and menacing but give credit to the screenplay where it’s due. Linoge isn’t an ambiguous amalgamation of cosmic evil or an elaborate mystery that loses its power once it is exposed. He’s a quickly established threat who only prolongs the mystery surrounding his intentions so that the townsfolk – and the viewers – are sufficiently terrified of his capabilities by the time he reveals what he wants.
And what a reveal it is.
Storm of The Century Features One of King’s Greatest Endings
Even in some of his better works, King sometimes struggles to deliver an ending that feels worthy of the many mysteries that lead up to it. That is not the case here. It turns out that Linoge is an ancient being who is slowly nearing the end of his centuries-long lifespan. As such, he wants to take one of the town’s children and make them his heir. He claims the child will live long and see much. He also claims that the people of the town – children included – will die in the storm anyway if they don’t honor his request.
It’s not an elaborate scenario. It’s essentially a supernaturally sweetened variation on “the Trolley “Problem,” and that’s all it needs to be. Rather than try to concoct an elaborate conclusion equal to the mysteries teased along the way, King lets these characters and their emotions do the heavy lifting en route to an appropriate finale.
To surrender a child seems unthinkable. Yet, it’s a moral dilemma that perfectly utilizes those small-town tropes King often returns to because of their potency. We’ve established that these people are survivors, that they can live with a secret, and that, on some level, they wonder if there is a better life somewhere off the island. By the time we are confronted with that particular dilemma, the unthinkable somehow seems reasonable.
Crucially, King doesn’t offer a liferaft at the last moment. There are no deus ex machinas or similarly mystical escapes here. A decision is made, and it is hard to swallow. Not until 2007’s The Mist would we see a Stephen King story that balances small-town drama with a bleak, mythical pay-off in such a satisfying way. Of course, that ending was Frank Darabont’s invention rather than Stephen King’s.
It is fascinating to see King not only deliver a somewhat similar conclusion years earlier but arguably surpass what The Mist eventually accomplished. Whereas The Mist raises questions about the relationship between its inciting incident and its haunting finale that may or may not be answerable, there is a clear line between everything that happens in Storm of the Century.
Indeed, with the possible exception of the ‘Salem’s Lot novel, King has rarely balanced supernatural and human conflicts in a small town as well as he does here. Just as the storm is both a real threat and a harbinger of Linoge, the time we spend with the townsfolk is both interpersonally intriguing and the spark that eventually ignites a slow burn. It is thrilling to watch a King story that is both so comfortably familiar yet refined and subversive enough to remind you why the author returns to these themes and the stories they have left to tell.
It’s a shame, then, that Storm of the Century has fallen through the cultural cracks.
Storm of the Century Is A Gem From the Lost Era of Event Television
When trying to understand its relative obscurity compared to King’s other works of that era and format, we must turn back to that list of usual suspects. It’s not based on one of his novels, it is easy to outwardly confuse it with some of his other stories, and with its ultra-bleak ending…well, to quote Arrested Development, I don’t want to blame it all on 9/11, but that certainly didn’t help.
The hardest criticisms to accept, though, come from those who dismiss Storm of the Century for its runtime or claim it could have been done in 90 minutes. In its day, Storm of the Century was that thing that seems almost magical now: a television event. It was not just watercooler appointment television; it was watercooler appointment television that gave a generation-defining author the space he needed to deliver a methodical and character-driven story that was not just worthy of a novel but arguably more effective than some of those novels.
It’s an all-too-common fate for those made-for-TV programs that challenged the medium’s boundaries only to get lost in the prestige TV era and eventual streaming takeover. Whatever respect TV may have now isn’t always retroactively granted to those works that paved the way and often still stand tall on their own. It doesn’t help that many of those programs are either difficult to find via modern means or have simply been lost to time.
Thankfully, that is not the case with Storm of the Century. As of the time of this writing, it is available to watch on Hulu in the U.S. When you watch it, take my advice and treat it as the multi-night event it was always meant to be. It will help you appreciate the beauty of this gem that once attracted tens of millions of viewers as well as the tragedy of its ultimate fragility.
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