Storm of the Century was a very good show but with a very disturbing ending. I'm not saying that it was a poor ending as in not well written but I was hoping for a different outcome and was very frustrated when it did not happen.
The point of the story was that the majority of the town had no true morality even though they may have said they did. It is a cynical statement against the self-righteousness of society and how people tend to not live according to what they proclaim to be their own beliefs and standards. Mike Anderson seemed to be the only person in the town that truly did believe that through faith, the town could stand up to the demon Linoge and win. The rest of the town seemed convinced that the only option was to give in and argued that it would be better to have a child live with a bad man than to die. Even if that were true, this shows that they did not believe in an afterlife where innocents are saved and people receive a reward for making righteous choices. This frustrates me so much about the people in this town. It would have made me even more furious than Mike had it been me in his place. They argue that giving into a demon to save themselves from death is a better option than fighting evil and making a righteous choice even if that choice means death.
Many of Stephen King's stories take this cynical approach for some of the characters but the fact that it is so prominent and even centric in this one really hit a nerve for me. I like to think that I would have been the "Mike Anderson" in this story and that I would have stood up to evil even if it meant death. But the story very effectively points out the hypocrisy of many.
The main difference with this story, and I think what really upset me, was that usually the good guy comes through and even in this story, I held onto the hope that in the end, Mike would pull through and save Ralphie. The fact that he doesn't truly broke my heart the first time I saw this and I was incredibly upset.
I find it interesting that in King's stories, you can never really tell in the beginning whether a person will truly be strong or weak in the face of evil. A lot of Stephen King's character's, like Jack Torrance in The Shining, are weak and that is why they give into evil influence. In fact if you listen to Stephen King commentary on The Stand he mentions this idea. Everyone is good but some only to the point where evil can easily overtake them anyway. I believe is what he says. Basically I take this to mean that a lot of people are only good because they fear the consequences of sin or the social implications of doing things that are viewed as unacceptable in our society, but then when they are faced with pure evil in his stories they easily give in because they then fear the consequences and threats that they are faced with from the evil character, like death. To me this is a clear sign that these people have no faith or solid beliefs in any kind of religion at all.
So in Storm of the Century it seems that only the truly good people in the entire town are the ones that get screwed and that's why I didn't like the ending. This is seen in the scene where the boyfriend (Billy?) resists killing the pregnant girl but she just turns right around and kills him. So he gets punished by the weak for being strong in the face of evil. This also is evidence to me that the town truly made the wrong choice and had they had faith they could have resisted Linoge. He spends the entire 2nd hour of the film sitting in a jail cell puppeting around weak individuals to do evil acts as evidence of his power. This is part of his lie. He wants them to believe that he has the power to make them all walk into the sea when in reality he only has as much power as they give him.
The point of the story was that the majority of the town had no true morality even though they may have said they did. It is a cynical statement against the self-righteousness of society and how people tend to not live according to what they proclaim to be their own beliefs and standards. Mike Anderson seemed to be the only person in the town that truly did believe that through faith, the town could stand up to the demon Linoge and win. The rest of the town seemed convinced that the only option was to give in and argued that it would be better to have a child live with a bad man than to die. Even if that were true, this shows that they did not believe in an afterlife where innocents are saved and people receive a reward for making righteous choices. This frustrates me so much about the people in this town. It would have made me even more furious than Mike had it been me in his place. They argue that giving into a demon to save themselves from death is a better option than fighting evil and making a righteous choice even if that choice means death.
Many of Stephen King's stories take this cynical approach for some of the characters but the fact that it is so prominent and even centric in this one really hit a nerve for me. I like to think that I would have been the "Mike Anderson" in this story and that I would have stood up to evil even if it meant death. But the story very effectively points out the hypocrisy of many.
The main difference with this story, and I think what really upset me, was that usually the good guy comes through and even in this story, I held onto the hope that in the end, Mike would pull through and save Ralphie. The fact that he doesn't truly broke my heart the first time I saw this and I was incredibly upset.
I find it interesting that in King's stories, you can never really tell in the beginning whether a person will truly be strong or weak in the face of evil. A lot of Stephen King's character's, like Jack Torrance in The Shining, are weak and that is why they give into evil influence. In fact if you listen to Stephen King commentary on The Stand he mentions this idea. Everyone is good but some only to the point where evil can easily overtake them anyway. I believe is what he says. Basically I take this to mean that a lot of people are only good because they fear the consequences of sin or the social implications of doing things that are viewed as unacceptable in our society, but then when they are faced with pure evil in his stories they easily give in because they then fear the consequences and threats that they are faced with from the evil character, like death. To me this is a clear sign that these people have no faith or solid beliefs in any kind of religion at all.
So in Storm of the Century it seems that only the truly good people in the entire town are the ones that get screwed and that's why I didn't like the ending. This is seen in the scene where the boyfriend (Billy?) resists killing the pregnant girl but she just turns right around and kills him. So he gets punished by the weak for being strong in the face of evil. This also is evidence to me that the town truly made the wrong choice and had they had faith they could have resisted Linoge. He spends the entire 2nd hour of the film sitting in a jail cell puppeting around weak individuals to do evil acts as evidence of his power. This is part of his lie. He wants them to believe that he has the power to make them all walk into the sea when in reality he only has as much power as they give him.