Democratic Sin

[setsuled]

Last night I finally finished watching Stephen King's Storm of the Century, the 1999 miniseries King wrote for television. I started watching it back in the summer but, considering it concerns a town besieged by a blizzard, it seemed better suited for winter viewing so I saved the last two of the three parter. It was pretty good. Crummy effects and director Craig R. Baxley's unimaginative style aside--but I think that's just what King likes, a director who leaves all the imagination up to King.

The writing was good. It's a "Monsters are Due on Maple Street" kind of story, that kind of Twilight Zone-ish essay story you don't often see anymore (I suppose I ought to finish watching Black Mirror).



Supernatural serial killer Andre Linoge (Colm Feore) psychically manipulates people into killing and taunts other people with dirty secrets from their pasts, setting them all up for a grand finale moral test.



Linoge turns out to be an ancient entity who, it's hinted, was responsible for the disappearance of the first Roanoke colony. As a conspicuously moralistic spirit he could be interpreted as a Puritan's nemesis or exterminating angel. You're left at the end wondering if the people in this town are exceptionally bad people or if secret rot is the common human condition.

Storm of the Century is available on YouTube.