I've read many of Mr. King's books and I believe the reason they are so long is because he spends a great deal of time talking about trivial things such as the color of eyes, shape of eyes, length of hair, color of pants, etc. In this book Croatan is mentioned at least twice (and in the movie), but neither explains what a Croatan is! It's a werewolf! If you want true horror and excitement, try Clive Barker and I would suggest your first experience with Mr. Barker be "The Damnation Game". It's FANTASTIC!

First I need to say that I was not very excited to read Stephen King's "Storm of the Century" because I was afraid that the screenplay format would strip away all the character building I enjoy in Stephen King's writing. Secondly, I have never liked many of his works written for, or adapted for, the screen. I began this book with some serious concerns.

No worries were needed. After I got through living with the residents of Little Tall Island for two nights during the biggest storm ever to hit the island, and the visitor who chose this time to rip the island's community apart, I was more than satisfied that I picked up "Storm of the Century".

The characters were stock King characters, but the anti-hero, Linoge, was actually even creepier because the screenplay format would not allow a deep dive into Linoge's motivation. All his physical actions, with no understanding (until the end) of his intentions, made Linoge unpredictable and a very strong evil character.

I also enjoyed seeing how Stephen King structured the suspense visually. From the quick cuts showing scenes of a town slowly being swallowed by the storm (and Linoge), to the great scene where Mike is chronicling the crime scene at Martha's with a Polaroid camera and each flash of the camera reveals new details of the crime. I thought his creative use of a visual medium was very good.

There were also enough pure Stephen King lines in the screenplay that you never forgot who the author was. The dialogue was not great, but some of the throw away direction is priceless. For instance, when one of the characters gets an axe to the face, Stephen King describes how he wants it sound (the action happens of camera) "it's like someone slapping mud with the flat of his hand". Or when he writes how the Town Hall should be depicted as the final safe haven in Little Tall Island and then adds "Of course the Titanic probably looked the same way before it hit the iceberg".

The theme of guilt within the tight family of islanders was also interesting, and I am glad the ending had a glimpse into the future (present) so we could see what happened to some of the main participants of the final tragedy.

All in all I enjoyed it a lot.

I havn't read it yet, but I've seen my dvd of it (at least) 3 times already. Let alone, on tv a few times too. ;)

~a Stephen King Constant Reader

Let me start off by saying that whatever else he is, you have to give Stephen King credit for doing innovative stuff. His serial novel "The Green Mile" is a good example of it, and releasing Storm of the Century as a teleplay is another one. I had never read a teleplay before, and it was definitely interesting to see the different format.

The novelty of the format alone was enough to hold my attention through what was, essentially, a pretty standard King story. King trots out all the hallmarks of his "schtick" here: supernatural tragedy comes to small insular town. Seen it in the Castle Rock stories, in It, in the Tommyknockers, in Salem's Lot, in Bag of Bones, in From a Buick 8...etc. I'll also point out that the insularity of his towns grows increasingly less believable in today's modern, wired world, but it's as if King's idea of what constitutes town life is stuck at say, 1950 or so--has he ever written a character who is a web-geek, for example? For that matter, has he ever *shown* a character using the Internet?

But anyway, all his standard cliches are here: Small, somewhat improbably insular Maine town? Check. Townsfolk hiding secrets? Check. Stranger with mysterious and evil powers showing up? Check. (Shades of Mr. Gaunt, Randall Flagg, etc.) Stranger knows and publicly reveals folks' secrets? Check. Odd nursery rhyme or saying repeated at intervals throughout the story? Check. Stephen King's stock characters trotted out? Check. The reenactment of Shirley Jackson's "The Lottery" at the end was about the only thing here that seemed somewhat fresh, and even then, Stephen King's fascination with that story has been demonstrated in many of his other books (check out the Dark Tower III, for example).

I don't mean to sound as negative as the preceding might come across; it's just that this struck me as a fairly standard (and mediocre) King outing that basically rehashed a lot of material that he had used before. Perhaps after having written for such a long time, he simply doesn't have that much original to say anymore. *shrug* Nothing much to see here, folks; move it along.

This is the first screenplay that I read of S.King., it is so well written that you can imagine it as if you were actually seen the movie. The story is so good that it keeps you interested at all times, without a clue about what is going to happen at the end.