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Storm Of The Century (1999)

DVD Cover (Lions Gate)
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Overall Rating 70%
Overall Rating
Ranked #3,372
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A strange and powerful creature with the appearance of a man has come to the small town of Little Tall Island, Maine during the heaviest snow storm in the last 100 years. He brings with him the darkest secrets of all the townspeople and uses his knowledge to control and drive some of them to suicide and murder. But with every event, he leaves the clear message "Give me what I want and I'll go away." But first, he has to convince everyone that he has the power to destroy the village, if they don't comply. --IMDb
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Review by Chad
Added: April 27, 2006
A record-breaking snowstorm is poised to hit Little Tall Island, a small town just off the coast of Maine, but that turns out to be the least of the town's worries in this made-for-TV miniseries. Penned by Stephen King exclusively for the small screen, this tale tells the story of a small town who, unfortunately, has to welcome an outsider into their midst. After killing an old lady and finding himself arrested by town constable Mike Anderson (Timothy Daly), he eventually introduces himself as Andre Linoge (Colm Feore) and makes a simple statement: "Give me what I want, and I'll go away." The typical ravings of a lunatic, thinks the townsfolk who come into contact with him... until they realize that he has the uncanny ability to publicly and accurately reveal their darkest secrets. That's a bit odd in and of itself, but when some of the fine, upstanding citizens of the town start killing themselves for no apparent reason and those deaths tie back to our imprisoned friend, Mike decides to pay just a wee bit more attention to this man's requests. With the snow destroying any hope of contact with the mainland, he thinks that it may be best to give this man what he wants to get him off the island and out of their lives... but pray tell, what exactly does he want?

It takes a while for that question to be answered, considering the fact that this miniseries runs for well over four hours in the condensed-for-DVD format. Surprisingly though, there's not a whole lot of padding to be found. There's some scenes sprinkled here and there that could have been cut or shortened, don't get me wrong; but this is definitely not two hours of material stretched out to appease the advertisers as other miniseries have been known to do. Considering that the storyline is fairly simple up until the end revelations (Andre wants something, people die, Mike tries to find out what and why respectively), I'm quite impressed that director Craig R. Baxley managed to keep things at least tolerable for this mammoth amount of time... and in fact, the storyline was pretty damned entertaining for at least eighty percent of the total running time.

The only real problem that I had with this movie was the characters involved. Andre is given plenty of time to shine, and Colm Feore is perfect for the role. That's to be expected though, considering that he is the main villain and all, but the rest of the cast doesn't quite get that same amount of love from the script. The acting from the rest of the cast is tolerable; it's a made-for-TV production and you won't forget that fact while watching this, but that's not the problem I had. My gripe here is the fact that we have a lot of townsfolk actively involved with the storyline. This is not one of those presentations where we have two or three main characters, three or four supporting characters, and a town full of bodies to make things look realistic; no sir, here we have at least three main characters and upwards of two-dozen supporting characters. On paper, this is a good thing... I mean, the events do take place in a small town, and nearly everyone on this island is involved with the events taking place. However, there's simply not enough time to develop these characters properly, and there's really not enough care in me for that many people.

This film isn't scary, nor is it even creepy or tense. It tries to be, but with the exception of Andre flashing some wicked-looking vampire teeth for the camera (an effect that gets really old by the twentieth time we see it), there's really not any elements of horror to be found. The scenes that attempt to raise the tension or set a creepy atmosphere fall a bit flat, mainly due to the television format that it was made for. There's no extreme violence to be found, there's no overt Satanic references mixed in, and just when things start to get good, it cuts over to another scene (thanks to the commercials that aired during the original broadcast, no doubt). That's not to say that I didn't enjoy this presentation, but those of you who equate Stephen King with horror may be disappointed after popping this DVD into your player.

This isn't Stephen King's best film adaptation, nor does it rank up there with his best miniseries presentations. However, it is an entertaining piece of work, and you could do much worse than this one when it comes to Stephen King material. Give it a rental, or hell, give it a purchase; it's currently sitting in the $5 bin at most fine retailers, so there's not much of a gamble here. 7/10.
bluemeanie #1: bluemeanie - added April 28, 2006 at 2:42pm
I remember seeing this thing when it came on television a few years ago, and I was not impressed. Stephen King mini-series are either absolutely amazing ("It"), or absolutely terrible ("Storm of the Century") -- oh wait, guess I just ruined that. This is really, really bad filmmaking and there are really not redeeming qualities to the film whatsoever. The book was pretty awful as well. 2/10.
Dametria #2: Dametria - added April 24, 2007 at 12:45pm
Incredably dull! Watched for HOURS waiting for something incredable to happen and nothing ever did
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