TV: The Devil runs amok in Storm of the Century

By FRANCES GRANT

Poor old Martha Clarendon didn't have a snowball's chance in hell when the Devil came knockin' on her door.

The dear old duck barely had time to register the fearful visage of the Evil One before her Zimmerframe was flying through the air and she was getting her head mushed by a supernatural murder weapon - Satan's snarling silver cane.

Subtlety is not part of horror writer Stephen King's vocabulary, as was immediately evident in the set-up scenes of last night's first instalment of his mini-series Storm of the Century (concluding tonight on TV3, 8.30 pm).

The two-parter is set in familiar King territory, rural communities of picturesque white weatherboard houses (so easy to wash the colour out of and turn ominous) in the American state of Maine.

As a ripper of a storm threatens to cut off the small island of Little Tall Pine, a sinister drifter (Colm Feore, winner of best actor in last year's Canadian film awards for The Red Violin) murders Granny Clarendon.

Rather than do a runner he calmly awaits the good folks of the community to discover the crime and arrest him.

Although King describes his method of creating horror as a gradual revelation - "little by little the things we think we know and the people we think we love start to change into other things" - he wastes no time in letting us know this drifter isn't what he seems.

His name is Andre Linoge, for starters, (why does the Devil always seem to have a European name and accent?) and he's given to declaiming verse. He also seems to be au fait with the darkest secrets of all the island's inhabitants - the shonky business deals, the affairs, the gamblin', whorin' - in short the full set of sins obligatory for all small-town communities in hammy telly dramas.

And, in the odd moment, when none of the island dwellers is watching, Linoge sports a set of fangs badly in need of serious dental care.

Unlike other King productions, such as The Shining, Storm of the Century was not written as a book but is the horror maestro's first attempt at writing directly for television. He is quoted in publicity material: "I thought to myself, 'Wouldn't it be interesting to do this idea as an original for TV so nobody knows where the curve balls are, and nobody knows when Jack's going to jump out of his box, so to speak'."

And there certainly is a no-holds-barred feel about the piece, as if King, let loose on screen, was determined to exploit the visual medium to the max.

You just knew as the camera settled on various choice locations around the town - a suitably derelict old wharf, for example - that these were prime candidates for some spectacular demolition scenes once the wind got up and the Devil began to run amok.

But the transition from page to screen also showed in the pace. The long, slow build-up of tension, which would work perfectly in prose, palled on screen and translated into heavy-handed signals of what to expect next.

Every "curve ball" could be seen coming from a mile off.

The residents of the island are stuck in a howling tempest with the Devil in their midst. With Linoge already exhibiting impressive powers (getting an individual to slice his own head in two with an axe was a good one), there's bound to be plenty of action left for tonight's second part.

But for all the pools of gratifyingly sticky blood and the fun of seeing the locals turn into psychos, the only chilling thing about Storm of the Century so far has been all those scenes of freezing weather.