Storming Viewing (Stephen King's Storm of the Century (DVD))

Member Name: IainWear

Product:	Stephen King's Storm of the Century (DVD)
Date:	08/11/09 (38 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Well crafted and well written

Disadvantages: Some of the DVD extras are a little weak

I'd never heard of Stephen King's "Storm of the Century" until I happened across the book version in a New York branch of Barnes and Noble back in 2003. I knew that many of his books had become films and TV miniseries, most of which turned out to be pale comparisons of his written work. However, this was the first time I had seen something he'd written directly as a script and hearing it had always been intended to be written that way and had indeed been filmed, I was keen to find a copy and see if it fared any better in the transition from one media to another.

Perhaps unsurprisingly given the title, a major storm is about to hit Little Tall, a small island just off the coast of Maine. It looks like being a bad one and the residents of Little Tall are making preparations, which involve battening down the hatches and panic buying in the local store, the same as in most places. But to complicate matters, the island is rocked by more than wind and snow, with the arrival of a mysterious stranger who kills one of the residents and causes uproar among the townspeople by not only knowing but also telling some of their deepest darkest secrets.

This stranger, Andre Linoge, comes with a simple request; "Give me what I want and I'll go away", but he intends to cause more trouble for the islanders before he does so, for the moment keeping his demands secret in favour of wreaking havoc. This havoc involves several strange suicides, with the only suicide note ever left reading "Give me what I want and I'll go away", leaving them in no doubt who has caused such things. It soon becomes clear to all concerned that getting through the storm is going to be far easier than dealing with Andre Linoge, especially once his demands become clear. After all, the storm is only causing inconvenience and damaging buildings that can be repaired; Linoge is breaking the people themselves, some in ways that can never be put right again afterwards.

At first, this may sound like a simple story for what was originally shown in three 2-hour instalments in the United States and runs to around 4 and a quarter hours even with the adverts and credits removed. However, King's strengths have always been in building the characters up so that you care more about what is about to happen to them later on and that's part of the beauty here. The pacing of the story is typically King, starting slowly and building up towards the end. Whilst it could be argued that you could remove a fair chunk of the story without losing too much, this slow build and the time taken to really get to know the major characters gives the ending far more impact than it may otherwise have done.

The characters, as usual for King's writing, are very well drawn. The townspeople are presented as ordinary folks making the best out of a bad situation and coping as best they can. But as circumstances start to get on top of them and things start getting out of hand, the pressure begins to tell. We get to see all the different ways people react under pressure and the tension builds very nicely to an emotive ending. There's a nice contrast at all points between the good and the evil, with Linoge's actions early on setting him apart from the good, solid townspeople and his imperturbability when everyone around him is cracking under the strain later on giving an indication of which side is which. That said, there are a couple of moments early on where it seems the story is straining too hard to portray Linoge as the bad guy with his jet black eyes and pointed teeth.

The acting helps with the characterisation, with the performances making them seem very real. This being a TV mini-series and therefore not having the huge budget of a feature film, there are very few big names here. The biggest may be Colm Feore as Andre Linoge, who had minor roles in "Face/Off" and "Chicago". He plays Andre Linoge with effortless control, making him comparatively evil by demeanour as much as by action. He switches quite nicely from Linoge to a preacher and a news reporter with a little help from the makeup department with ease, too. Jeffrey DeMunn also puts in a decent turn as Town Manager Robbie Beals, surviving on bluff and bluster for the early part and playing one cowed by Linoge and by circumstance later on. He's another who has gone on and his character here is quite a contrast to the part he played in "The Green Mile", which is always an encouraging sign of a decent acting performance. Perhaps the standout performances for me, though, were that of Timothy Daly as Mike Anderson and Becky Ann Baker as Ursula Godsoe. Their characters both get to experience the extremes of emotions and both deal with it very well. Mike Anderson is perfectly under control and you can see him losing his grip as events overtake him, but without the bluster that Robbie Beals puts up to cover it. Ursula Godsoe has the best and worst of events throughout the whole film, but the acting on both parts makes you feel along with them and this really helps draw the viewer into the story in the way King would have intended.

Despite the smaller budget allowed for a made for television film like this, the special effects stand up pretty well. There are a couple of scenes where the snow looks very fake and doesn't act in quite the way snow should do, but in using pieces of plastic rather than trying to generate it later on computer, it doesn't look as bad as it could have done. There are a couple of transformations between the older and younger versions of Andre Linoge that look clumsily rendered, especially one right towards the end, but overall the effects are very well done. I've seen big budget films with far worse effects, even recently and when you consider that there is a major storm which knocks a lighthouse over in this film and you couldn't pick up any mistakes in the production of those shots, it's certainly been well done.

The music is another decent feature, as it fits wonderfully in with the story. Gary Chang's score may fall for some of the clichés of having wild sweeping music when the storm comes in, lots of strings over the emotional scenes and a slightly darker tone when Linoge is on screen; it's all done very well. That musical arrangement has become a cliché in part because it works perfectly and Gary Chang's score here certainly reinforces why that has become the case.

This is certainly by far the best of the Stephen King adaptations in terms of the TV movies side of things and it is, indeed, better than many of the Stephen King adaptations made for the big screen. I think this has a lot to do with it having been written in script form right from the start and doesn't contain big ideas and set pieces that can't be easily translated into a visual form, such as with something like "The Langoliers". It's also one that has appeal to non-horror fans, as it's really much more of a suspense film than a horror film, despite opening with a murder. There is really nothing here to put anyone off, except perhaps the fact that it doesn't contain a huge amount of action, so those people who enjoy seeing big explosions every few minutes are going to be disappointed.

For those King fans who have to have this and for those who don't mind a more considered, character driven watch, the versions of the DVD in the different regions vary quite a lot in terms of presentation and price. The Region 2 version comes on two discs and has no extras to speak of. As a European Stephen King fan, this really annoys me, as I see no reason why we aren't entitled to get the same things as the US fans. The only reasons I can think of for this was if it has something to do with the American network this story was originally written and filmed for. I was also annoyed that the German version of the Region 2 DVD was released a year or so before the English version, so I had to wait even longer for it with my single region DVD player.

I have since obtained a multi-region player and now realise that there was little point in my being that upset, as the Region 1 version isn't that much better than the Region 2 version, at least in terms of the extras. Indeed, from a personal point of view, it's actually worse in terms of the presentation because the Region 1 version comes as a double sided single disc, whereas the Region 2 version comes split over two discs. Double sided DVDs have always annoyed me, as I have an unerring knack of selecting the wrong side when I first try to play one.

What is present in terms of the extras seems like it could be a lot, but most of it is barely worth bothering with. The trailer is only for this release, emphasising the horror side of things and that it's written by Stephen King, when it's not really a horror story as such and isn't terribly typical of his work and it also gives away some important plot points. The filmographies of the actors and of Stephen King are nothing that can't be found on iMDB or one of King's book jackets and thanks to the age of the film now, are horribly out of date. There's a cute little kangaroo in the menu that seems quite interesting, but turns out to be nothing more than an advert for the printed version of the title.

The commentary promised a little more, being from Stephen King himself and the director, Craig R. Baxley. Unfortunately, it's not the best commentary I've ever listened to, although as a Stephen King fan, it certainly has some very interesting parts in it. King starts off by talking about how the idea for "Storm of the Century" came about and about the challenges for writing for TV and how to write a mini-series from scratch, instead of writing in novel form. He talks about his battle with the Standards and Practices part of the TV Company and how he had to battle for certain lines in the script to make it onto the screen. Whilst this was mildly fascinating, parts of this were also in his introduction to the print version of the title, so I'd heard part of it before. The other issue with King is that his speaking voice isn't terribly interesting and he seems to have an agenda to talk about himself. As information about King, his sections of the commentary tend to be good, but as a commentary on the film, it's less so. When he does mention what's happening on screen, he often does so in a way that suggests he's been distracted by what's on the screen, rather than seeming like he intended to talk about it.

Craig R. Baxley concentrates more on what's happening on screen, talking about locations, casting, and the difficulties of filming something that demands a lot of snow. I did enjoy the irony in the fact that many of the scenes involving the snow itself had to be filmed indoors, as the logistics in filming outdoors would have made it impossible. Baxley mostly concentrates on the technical side of things, about casting and how he worked with the actors. His side of things tends to be a bit more positive, which gets a little dull when he's constantly praising the actors. There are a couple of points where he says the same thing as King has done and it suggests that the two of them didn't work on the commentary together. This is a shame as sometimes the interaction between people who have done different jobs on the film can add to a commentary, but you get none of that here. Most of the interesting points are made quite early on and with a running time in excess of 4 hours, this does make things quite dull towards the end. King has more of interest to say and Baxley resorts at times to simply pointing out which bits of the snow were made of which material, which does get very dull after a while. As a King fan, I enjoyed the things he had to say so I'm glad I played it through once, but it's certainly not something I'll have on again, even though I'm sure I'll watch the film several times in the future. Paying extra for this version isn't really recommended to anyone other than the most serious of King fans, although fortunately that is exactly what I am.

Fortunately, and perhaps strangely, the Region 1 version does appear to be available more cheaply than the Region 2 version, so if you're a determined King fan, this is great news. I've seen the Region 1 version on the Amazon Marketplace for £3.91 and on Play for £5.00, but the cheapest I've seen the Region 1 version new is £6.99 on Play Trade. These are very small prices to pay for what was, for me, one of the better King adaptations I have seen and something that would have been well worth watching even for a non-King fan, as it's quite a creepy, but not really gory of terrifying tale. This is a well-crafted story, developed into a decent TV mini-series with care and attention and it is well worth watching when you're paying such a small price.

Summary: The best TV miniseries adaptation of a Stephen King novel yet