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Storm of
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...give me what I want, and I'll go away...
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Storm of
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Set in the one of the most isolated communities featured in King's canon, Little Tall Island off the coast of Maine, Storm of the Century seems to be firmly established in preset Kingian roots. Novels like 'Salem's Lot, Desperation, It, The Tommyknockers, Needful Things, and The Regulators all feature stories of insular and/or isolated small towns with which Evil decides to play with. But as King notes in his forward to the screenplay proper, there is one essential difference. In those other works, it is the outside evil that destroys the town, and only by banding together can the townsfolk survive. What if, King poses, the opposite were true? What if by banding together the townfolk only make it worse? Only damn themselves? The answer lies in the pages of Storm of the Century.
The screenplay begins as many recent King novels have: a stage-setter reveling in unmitigated violence. This tactic worked well in Rose Madder, The Regulators and Insomnia. Here, a stranger named Andre Linoge has come to Little Tall, preceeding what weather officials are terming the "storm of the century," a superblizzard set to beseige the small island within hours. Linoge enters the screenplay softly, humming "I'm a Little Teapot" on his way up to an old woman's home. She lets him in, and he beats her to death with his cane. The scene is set.
Enter Michael Anderson, a husband and father who is also the town constable. He takes Linoge in to the holding cell behind the general store, unable to send him to the mainland because of the storm. On the way, the towsfolk stare at Linoge, gawking as any crowd would at a known murderer. Before he reaches his cell, Linoge displays acts of precient knowledge: he seems to know what everyone's darkest secret is, and doesn't hesitate to let everyone else know. Once in his cell, Linoge sits cross-legged, eerily quiet. But Little Tall is not quiet. The darkness beset upon them from the storm can't compare to the evil that pervades from within.
It is revealed fairly early on that Linoge has superhuman powers, and Storm of the Century assumes its role as a supernatural work easily. In a plot structure reminiscant of, but not a copy of, Needful Things, Linoge uses both his powers and his secret knowledge to play the townspeople against one another. Before long, there is death, but death is not where the darkness in Storm of the Century lies. The darkness here is in misplaced ideas of trust and faith, and the horrible consequences that false belief can storm down.
Storm of the Century is an interesting read. The fact that it is a screenplay makes it unique, but the style doesn't detract from the story. Toward the middle, Storm spikes up into a religious horror story, but not as blatantly or as all-encompassing as Desperation or The Green Mile. The ending owes a fair amount to the Bachman Books, but to say any more would be to spoil the surprise.
An engaging, intriguing work that shows that King can still deliver a shocker of an ending, Storm of the Century marks yet another milestone in King's unexhaustable canon.
Personal Observations
Storm of the Century, like Golden Years before it, was written specifically for television. The difference between the two is that Storm was written specifically as a three-part miniseries, wheras GY was supposed to be an actual series. See, so they're kind of justified in calling it "The First Novel For Television by Stephen King." Well, maybe not. Oh well.