“Born in lust, turn to dust. Born in sin, COME ON IN.”
Directors:
Craig R. Baxley (Dark Angel, Rose Red, Kingdom Hospital)
Writers:
Stephen King
Stars:
Tim Daly (Dr. Jekyll and Ms. Hyde, Voice of Superman in most of the animated stuff) – Mike
Jeffrey DeMunn (The Shawshank Redemption, The Walking Dead, The Mist) – Robbie
Colm Feore (The Chronicles of Riddick, The Exorcism of Emily Rose, Thor) – Andre Linoge
Plot:
A small village off the mainland is about to receive a huge winter storm. It won’t be just another storm for them. A strange visitor named Andre Linoge comes to the small village and gives the residents havoc. He knows everything about them, and when he tells the truth about one of them, that person denies it. The town constable, Mike Anderson, tries to keep everyone in check with the huge storm and Linoge. Linoge keeps telling the people, “Give me what I want and I will go away”…
Review:
Storm of the Century is one of the few stories by King, that isn’t based on a book, but was first written for the show.
Thankfully this is something important for the movie, as the important characters have enough depth to them and it never really feels rushed with its running time of nearly 260 minutes. The story mainly concentrates on Constable Mike, his friend Hatch, Mayor Robbie and of course Linoge. All of these characters are acted really well and feel realistic, but even the many minor characters are done well and not one of them, feels as crappy as nearly everyone in that Tommyknockers movie.
Another thing that works especially thanks to the story being written for the series is, that King knew what they could show and kept the whole thing very light when it comes to effects. The storm keeps our characters in only a few places and besides some cheap cgi effects for waves or a destroyed lighthouse, there isn’t much more. The whole story is based more on the psychological horror that those people have to live through.
But while most parts of the movie are done very well there was one part that I didn’t like. At least twice in every of the three movies, Linoge shows us his monstrous teeth. He isn’t showing them to anyone of the characters (only once and that doesn’t even happen onscreen), so there isn’t actually a reason to do it. The viewer already knows that he isn’t human and he already is a scary character without it, so these shots always feel cheap and threw me out of it sometimes. They definitely could have gone without that.
Conclusion:
Storm of the Century is done really well and is one of the better King movies I know. It never feels too long, or too short and all characters are done very well. It’s also proof, that tv movies based on King’s stories can work, as long as you don’t try to do it with a story that needs many special effects. Though even that shouldn’t be a big problem today. I’d definitely recommend this for a watch.
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