Flagg – Tony's Horror Corner

Released in 1999, Stephen King wrote the “Storm of the Century” screenplay for a television movie. The film was released in three parts, totaling over four hours of air time. The book was interesting for sure, but I felt like the screenplay style hindered what it could have been. The film was exactly as you’d expect after reading the book.

The residents of Little Tall Island off the coast of Maine (of course) are battening down the hatches and preparing for what the news is referring to as the storm of the century (go figure). While this is happening, a mysterious man shows up and kills an innocent old woman.

Side note: You may recognize Little Tall Island. It was the setting for “Dolores Claiborne” and the short story “Home Delivery.” Dolores is mentioned a couple times by the residents in “Storm of the Century.”

Anyway, this mysterious man is Andre Linoge. He ends up being like a lame version of everyone’s favorite King baddy: Randall Flagg. Linoge gets himself arrested by island constable, and the main character of the story, Mike Anderson.

Anderson is in charge of keeping the citizens calm and making sure everyone is safe during this storm, but now he must also deal with a murderous stranger. The storm escalates to its title and all the residents of Little Tall Island end up taking refuge in the town hall building. Meanwhile Mike and a few others stand guard outside of the island’s one cell where Linoge is being held.

From his cell, Linoge uses some sort of psychic abilities and sorcery to cause chaos. I wont go much further into details to avoid spoilers, but some of the events Linoge causes are quite intense, especially the ultimatum at the end.

“This is a cash-and-carry world, pay as you go. Sometimes you only have to pay a little, but mostly it’s a lot. And once in a while it’s all you have. ” – Mike Anderson

This review is shorter because the book itself wasn’t long. The screenplay, coming in at 376 pages, is hard to go over without spoiling and it read much faster than that page count suggests. You can watch the movie and honestly probably enjoy it more. Like I said before, this story isn’t bad, and the end is even a little heartbreaking, but I would have liked it much more if it were in novel form.

Overall, “Storm of the Century” wasn’t bad, but it definitely wasn’t King’s best work.

3 out of 5

After the announcement that King’s narrative poem “The Bone Church” was going to be a TV show, news of more adaptations were quiet. Enter James Wan, Roy Lee, Larry Sanitsky, Josh Boone and CBS.

On March 29, Wan and Lee announced they were teaming up with Sanitsky to create a movie adaptation for Stephen King’s novel, “The Tommyknockers.”

“The Tommyknockers” is a 563 page novel released in 1987 about a woman who finds a spaceship buried in her backyard. Through the process of trying to unearth the UFO, an unseen gas is emitted and begins to possess and change the inhabitants of Haven, Maine.

The novel has heavy themes surrounding addiction and often feels disorganized. King said he wrote the novel with bloody tissues hanging from his nose due to too much cocaine use.

I enjoyed it though, in all its jumbled weirdness. It was a fun, unique and overall a great novel that also carried heavy themes of redemption. I gave it a 4 out of 5 and have it ranked 46 out of 63.

James Wan, known for his work on “The Conjuring” films, and Roy Lee who helped produce the 2017 adaptation of Stephen King’s “IT,” have joined Larry Sanitsky who worked on the first adaptation of “The Tommyknockers” which hit TV screens everywhere in 1993. The trio plan to turn the novel into a movie.

The first attempt at an adaptation was hindered by the television platform. Hopefully with Sanitsky’s past experience with “The Tommyknockers” material, Wan’s success in the horror genre, and Lee’s success with King’s material, the trio can give us the worthy adaptation “The Tommyknockers” deserves.

In other, bigger news (yes, bigger), another, much more important King novel, is also being adapted.

One day after the “Tommyknockers” announcement, word of a new adaptation for King’s epic novel “The Stand” hit constant readers in the face.

OMG WHO’S PUMPED?!?! I KNOW I AM!!!

“The Stand” was reportedly picked up by CBS’s streaming service, All Access, for a 10-hour series. Josh Boone, whose past work includes “The Fault in Our Stars” and the upcoming X-Men horror, “The New Mutants,” has been attached to the project since 2014, and is still slated to direct the series.

Stephen King first released “The Stand” in 1978 and the novel tallied in at 823 pages. In 1990 he released an uncut edition which was 1152 pages long. I haven’t read the original, I only read the uncut edition, and it is PHENOMENAL. 5 out of 5, and lands at number 3 in my rankings.

“The Stand” is about a super-flu called Captain Tripps that wipes out almost the entire world population. The novel focuses on the epic battle between good vs evil and how their forces gather and then meet in a wild final showdown.

“The Stand” is where we are introduced to one of the most, if not THE most famous King villain: Randall Flagg.

The novel is epic and the original 1994 TV series directed by Mick Garris, starring Molly Ringwald and Gary Sinise, came in at just over six hours and didn’t do the novel justice whatsoever. The series wasn’t horrible by any means, but it wasn’t good either.

Hopefully Boone does better, and I think with four more hours to work with, better technology and most likely a bigger budget; things should definitely go better this time around. *Fingers Crossed*

So, to recap: read “The Tommyknockers” and “The Stand” BEFORE the adaptations release. They are both great novels, especially “The Stand.” You won’t regret it, and remember: The book is almost always better than the movie!

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