Storm of the Century

A powerful blizzard hits the fictional small island town of Little Tall Island (also the setting of King's novel Dolores Claiborne) off the coast of Maine. The storm is so powerful that all access to the island is cut off and no one is able to leave. As the town prepares for the storm, tragedy strikes when elderly resident Martha Clarendon is brutally murdered by André Linoge (Colm Feore), a menacing stranger with a black cane decorated by a silver wolf's head. When Robbie Beals, the town manager, investigates, Linoge claims to know the repetitious inner workings of hell and states that Robbie's mother has turned cannibal and is waiting in hell to eat him. Linoge is arrested by supermarket manager and part-time constable Michael "Mike" Anderson (Timothy Daly) and his friend and deputy Alton "Hatch" Hatcher. As he is taken to his cell, Linoge makes passing remarks at nearby townspeople, revealing he knows secrets about all of them. Linoge gives no hint of his origins or motives, only vaguely saying, "Give me what I want, and I'll go away."

While imprisoned, Linoge demonstrates a supernatural ability to: peer into and control minds, inflict hallucinations, and drive people to commit suicide and murder. Linoge shows he also has the ability to control the physical world, not just minds, by watching broken tv's, putting messages on computer screens, catching a speeding bullet, levitating objects and people, causing nosebleeds, jamming unlocked doors, and opening locked cell doors to leave at will. Linoge causes three suicides and a murder shortly after being jailed.

Later that evening, as the 200 remaining residents sleep, an escaped Linoge enters the lighthouse and supernaturally causes everyone to have the same dream: a dream of the entire town suicidally walking into the ocean and mystifying authorities in the aftermath as to what happened to everyone. The dream has Linoge, appearing heavier and bald, as a journalist reporting on the mass disappearance and comparing it to the 1587 disappearance event at Roanoke Island, Virginia. This suggests to the islanders that Linoge had the power to make an island community disappear before and that he may do it again. Linoge also appears in the same dream as a televangelist threatening that suffering will result if people sin by refusing to give the wanderer what he wants.

The next day, Linoge causes three residents to vanish while everyone is watching the lighthouse collapse. One is later discovered dead in the snow and lost resident Angie Carver is discovered alive with her dark hair now turned shock white. She reveals Linoge kidnapped her and that if he does not get what he wants then he will cause mass suicides as he did at Roanoke before. All eight of the town's young children are then enchanted and fall unconscious. Linoge then appears in the town hall and levitates Joanna and threatens to burn her. Linoge then asserts a moral authority saying that, Mike is good through and through, but the rest of the town is, "full of adulterers, pedophiles, thieves, gluttons, murderers, bullies, scoundrels, and covetous morons."

Mike earlier recounted the biblical story of Job and realized that Linoge's surname is an anagram for Legion, a collective group of demons exorcised by Jesus according to the Gospel of Mark and Gospel of Luke. Linoge frequently displays disgust at the immorality of humanity and states he possesses the supernatural power to punish. This raises the question whether Linoge is a force in the ultimate service of good rather than evil and reinforces the biblical reference that Mike made to the tests of Job. The reference to biblical Legion demons, Linoge's knowledge of hell, murderous tactics, and Linoge's insight into human sins, makes it seem that his primary obligation would be dark though.

Linoge demands a town hall meeting and then arrives claiming he will cause total suicide among everyone on the island including dropping all eight children unless one of them is given to him. Linoge reveals he is thousands of years old, but not immortal and is now dying and sick. He desires a protégé to raise and teach who can carry on his "work". He wishes the promises the child will become like him, long-lived, powerful, and seeing much. He cannot take a child by force, but he can punish the town and make them all to suffer and die if they refuse him. He leaves the townspeople half an hour to make their decision.

Mike begs the town to refuse, arguing the villain is not all-powerful and may soon leave the town just as the storm will if they trust in God and their own power. He appeals to their common decency and points out they may be aiding an evil man in harming a child. The other townspeople, including Mike's wife Molly, are too frightened of Linoge and think they have no choice. They argue this is not human sacrifice but rather an "adoption" and it is better to lose one child rather than all. Mike wishes to abstain from voting and take Ralphie away, but his friends stop him and Molly insists that being part of the town means they must accept Ralphie may be the child taken. Everyone but Mike votes in favor to give Linoge what he desires, and Hatch says he will see this is the right decision. Linoge arrives and has one parent of each child draw one of eight "weirding stones" that predate the sinking of Atlantis. Molly draws the lone black stone, marking Ralphie as the one who will be taken. Linoge transforms into his true form and thanks the town, suggesting they will be better off if they do not reveal his existence or this arrangement to the outside world. Mike is held back by Hatch and other townsfolk who fear reprisal. Now regretting her choice, Molly frantically shouts at Mike to help save Ralphie, but the townspeople continue to restrain him and refuse to aid her. In anguish, Molly accuses Linoge of tricking them by fixing the result of the stones before she attacks him in a frenzy. Linoge merely knocks Molly aside and remarks that she and the townspeople may have all tricked themselves, adding that Ralphie will eventually call him "father." Carrying the child, Linoge flies off into the night.

The following summer, a thoroughly depressed Molly is in therapy discussing her now failing marriage, lamenting she is now losing the last thing she ever loved. She insists Ralphie was "lost in the storm" along with perhaps another who also was never found that weekend and refuses to discuss him further despite the therapist warning that pain will fester if she can't be honest. Molly says she now understands some wounds can't be cleaned out. Despite the desperate pleas of his neighbors to stay, Mike is unable to condone or accept the townspeople sacrificing his son along with their principles; he resigns as constable and market manager and leaves Little Tall, divorcing Molly and deciding to never return (though his narration reveals he keeps in contact with some residents). He settles in San Francisco, and continues to represent law and order, eventually becoming a US Marshal. As time passes, he hears of several in Little Tall committing suicide over the years. Hatch, now a widower, marries Molly; Mike wishes the best for them. Nine years after the storm, Mike notices an old man and a teenage boy on the sidewalk, both humming "I'm a little teapot." He recognizes the boy as an older Ralphie and both turn to face him. The old man resembles Linoge while the boy briefly hisses with a fanged mouth. Mike follows them, but they vanish in an alley. Mike considers telling Molly what he saw that day, but ultimately decides against it; it is implied he severs contact with Little Tall permanently. He sometimes wonders if this is the wrong decision, then admits in narration "in daylight, I know better."

The screenplay for the miniseries was written by Stephen King expressly for television. The screenplay was published as a mass-market book by Pocket Books just prior to the initial airing of Storm of the Century on ABC.[2] The book included photographs of the TV mini-series. The book contains an introduction in which King describes the genesis of the idea as it occurred to him in late 1996. Beginning to write it in December 1996, he initially debated if the story should be either a novel or a screenplay. He described the result as a "novel for television."[1] A hardcover edition was published concurrently by the Book of the Month Club.

Storm of the Century aired on ABC on February 14–18, 1999. It was released on DVD on June 22 the same year.[4]

On Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 82% based on 22 reviews, with an average rating of 7.33/10. The website's critical consensus reads, "Chilling performances and an even darker moral dilemma shelter Storm of the Century's somewhat long-winded tale from ever being anything less than watchable."[5]

U.S. Television Ratings:

• Media based on Stephen King works

• Storm of the Century at IMDb
• Storm of the Century at AllMovie
• Storm of the Century at Rotten Tomatoes