If you have never seen Storm of the Century and you plan to see it someday then I suggest not reading this review as it is focused on my opinion on the ending.
From my comment profile at IMDb.com:
Storm of the Century was a very good show but with an ending that I wish had been different. I'm not saying that it was a poor ending as in not well written but I just was hoping for a different outcome and was very frustrated when it did not happen. It is probably more realistic in that sense and therefore makes its point very effectively.If you would like to see what other reviews I have written you can see them here. Most of them are about X-Files episodes but there are a couple others strung through.
I think the point of the story was that the majority of the town had no true religion or belief in anything even though they may have said they did. It is a cynical statement against most religion and how people tend to not live according to their own beliefs and standards. Mike Anderson seemed to be the only person in the town that truly did believe that God could save them if they stood up against the devil. And all the talk about how it would be better to have a child live with a bad man than to die? This shows that they did not believe that if their children were to die that they would at least be innocent and go to be with God, instead they would rather they have a temporary life in sin and be led to eternal damnation. This frustrates me so bad about the people in this town. It would have made me even more furious than Mike had it been me in his place. They basically say that the only choice they have is to give a child to the devil (damnation for all of them) instead of fighting against him and possibly dying but at least not giving in to the devil (salvation).
Stephen King is a very cynical writer and I usually enjoy his stories for this reason but I think this story just hit a very sensitive nerve. I like to believe that I would have been the "Mike Anderson" in the situation and I am fairly confident that I would because of the strength and firmness I have in what I believe religiously; however, I think there are many people who on the outside appear to be good religious people that turn out to have no real faith at all.
The difference in this ending compared to other Stephen King endings is that the hero of the story is the one who loses where in other King novels-while some of the good guys do die-the good side always ends up triumphant. But in this one the good guy that everyone is rooting for basically gets screwed and betrayed by his closest friends and his own wife to give away what he most loves in this world being his son. This is possibly one of the most tragic endings to any movie or play or book that I have ever come across. And finally to end there was the added factor that I kept thinking that for sure things would end up OK for Mike. I was wrong.
I have seen plenty of Stephen King movies and I know that I many of them have tragic endings but this one caught me off guard because I really cared a lot about Mike's character and wanted him to come out on top. I think one of the elements that make Stephen King's character's so interesting is that often times you can't really tell whether a character is good or bad. Sometimes they start out good but when they are faced with giving into evil or resisting they do the exact opposite of what you would expect.
A lot of Stephen King's character's, like Jack Torrance in The Shining, are weak in my opinion 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 used in that story. Everyone is good but some are only good 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.
Another example of this kind of hypocrisy is shown in Nathaniel Hawthorne's story Young Goodman Brown where the main character Goodman Brown runs into the Devil himself on walk in the woods. The devil continues to try enticing this good young man to join him and worship him but Goodman Brown continues to refuse by recalling the good righteous lessons he has learned from religious leaders and influences in his life. As he recalls these influences however, the people who most influenced him begin to show up on the path on their way to a devil worshippers meeting. He slowly begins to waiver but holds strong until he reaches the meeting and sees his own wife there as well. He realizes that everything he has ever believed to be good and true has been lies and hypocrisy and in the end he gives into the devil. A sad and cynical commentary on society but I think that is the same message Stephen King tries to convey.
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 (can't remember his name off the top of my head) 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. But this is just my opinion anyone who did like the ending is entitled to that.
I give this movie an 8 out of 10 rating.
That being said I would encourage everyone who needs an X-Files fix to visit the X-Files Ultimate website. There is recent news and interesting information about the show and the upcoming movie there. Also there is a pretty fun game for those who are not easily frustrated.
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