The Stand (1994) Parts 1 and 2 Review

The Stand (1994) Parts 1 and 2 Review

Stephen King’s novels have had mixed-to-negative success in being brought to the small screen, but The Stand, one of his most ambitious and sprawling and well-received narratives, seemed like the perfect story to bring to television. It was much too long to make into a single movie, and likely would’ve been milked if turned into a TV series, so it was adapted into a mini-series, which King himself wrote, and was directed by Mick Garris, who had worked with King previously on the movie Sleepwalkers. 

The series, like the book, is quite extensive, divided into four parts and clocking in at a whopping six hours (and that’s without commercials). The DVD set it comes on spreads it out over two discs, so that’s how I’ll review it, by covering the first two parts here, then the latter two parts tomorrow.

Before I started watching, I checked some of my expectations going in. This was made-for-TV in the mid-90’s, and was shown on ABC. TV today is significantly better than it was back then, so I knew not to expect Hollywood-level acting and production quality. However, as I started watching, it quickly became apparent The Stand is a pretty impressive production. 

A western feel is established right from the fade in, with great shots of wide open desert landscape and twangy guitar playing. What’s interesting is the western element is hinted at throughout the series, but kept very much in the background, with the majority of scenes taking place in primarily urban settings. It starts out like a mystery/thriller, then slowly trends toward fantasy.  

Part One, titled “The Plague”, begins in a government lab, where a deadly strain of flu is accidently unleashed, wiping out everyone except for one guy, who gets his family and himself out of there as quickly as possible. “Don’t Fear the Reaper” by Blue Oyster Cult plays over the opening credits, as the camera moves through the facility, showing all the dead workers. Any show that opens with Blue Oyster Cult is an instant win to me. 

The guy gets to a gas station, his family dead by then, and before he dies, he tells those around him, “You can’t outrun the Dark Man.” Here we meet one of the main characters, Stu Redman, who gets imprisoned at the CDC in Vermont, when it becomes evident he’s immune to the rapidly-spreading super flu—as are a surprisingly high number of other random people across the country.

The acting is a mixed bag, which isn’t too surprising with such a large cast of diverse people, but is mostly good. There are some great celebrity cameos, including Ed Harris and Kathy Bates (both of whom having starred in other Stephen King movies) and many of their roles are larger than just cameos. The main cast, too, has some impressive talent, such as Molly Ringwald as Frannie Goldsmith, a teenager who loses her father to the plague, and Rob Lowe as Nick Andros, a deaf mute. Gary Sinise (who played Lieutenant Dan in Forrest Gump) as Stu Redman is probably the best actor out of everyone; he’s usually the strongest presence in all the scenes he’s in.

The advantage of a large cast of characters is, chances are good that audiences will be able to relate to at least one or more of them. I found most of the characters to be okay, but some are really annoying. Rob Lowe’s Nick Andros befriends a mentally challenged man in Part Two whose main character trait is saying “M-O-O-N spells *insert word here*” which gets extremely annoying after he says it twice, and gets worse as he continues to use it over and over. The two of them also meet an insane girl who at first wants to do it with Nick, then tries to shoot them when they refuse to let her tag along. Though a small part, she’s very over-the-top and robs the scene of believability. 

Part One sets up the main players in this story quite well, and ends with the world officially plunging into post-apocalypse. Part Two, titled “The Dreams”, continues to focus on character development. Many of them discover they are having the same dream, about an old woman on a farm named Mother Abigail. Others dream of the mysterious man hinted at in the beginning, the “Dark Man” who goes by the name of Randall Flagg. Characters begin crossing over in Part Two, which is nice to see, and it ends with Flagg’s group forming in Las Vegas, and Mother Abigail’s group heading to Boulder, Colorado.

My first impressions of The Stand were more positive than I had anticipated. The production value is pretty impressive, considering the year it was made and the medium it was made for. I wouldn’t consider the genre/focus of the show to be predominantly horror, which makes it even more impressive that there are a few effective scares in Part One (and Part Two, to a lesser extent). 

On the negative side, Part One often uses fast frame rates, like what’s used for soap operas, which becomes distracting, but luckily it isn’t utilized in Part Two and beyond. The story moves along well, especially considering its length, but sometimes it feels slow just to drag out the runtime, though I felt this more in Part One than Part Two. 

That’s half of my review for The Stand, look forward to the other half tomorrow!