THE STAND (1994)

 

“This is how the world ends, not with a bang but a whimper.” – T.S. Eliot

 

 

And goddamn if it almost didn’t.  But that’s a story for another day because today we’re going to talk about The Stand.  Besides that other story is a little too recent and the ending might not have even been written yet.  So, The Stand, based on Stephen King’s magnum opus of the same name is what happens to humanity (or at least that of America) after a super flu outbreak kills off 99% of the population.  Most of those left either fall into two camps.  One group would look to the bad side of humanity made up of those that led corrupt lives before the epidemic.  This group is led by the deadly and mysterious Randall Flagg nicknamed “The Walking Dude”.  I guess that's because wherever he is he's always walking.  The other group representing the God fearing "decent" folks which is led by an old African American woman named Mother Abagail Freemantle.  Randall Flagg’s group centers in and around Las Vagas and Mother Abagail’s group meets in Nebraska before heading to Boulder Colorado.  Basically a showdown between good and evil then plays out between the two groups.  Neither side believes they can survive with the other group still around.  Now before we talk about who is in this monumental miniseries that spanned over four nights let’s talk about how epic it was. 

 

 

The Stand contains over 100 speaking roles, filming was shot using more than 200 sets, six million dollars was budgeted for each episode (which they ended up exceeding in the end) and was a huge ratings success.  Not only did a lot of people watch the miniseries but it was also met with above average reviews.  The Stand also received six Emmy Awards nominations, winning two of them.  Stephen King wrote the screenplay for the miniseries with Mick Garris doing the directing.  I’ve spoken about Mick Garris in other reviews and I have not given him rave reviews.  But I will say this, The Stand is by far his best work.  If the novel this is based on was King’s magnum opus than this is Garris’.  Now don’t go in expecting great special effects because there is nothing to write home about here.  In fact most of the effects budget, I would expect anyway, was spent on the transformations we see in the appearance of Flagg.  Now before I talk about how I feel about The Stand let’s talk about who is in The Stand.  And there’s a lot of them but I don’t want to make this my magnum opus of movie reviews so I’ll try to keep it as brief as I can.

 

 

A Good Cast Is Worth Repeating:

 

Mother Abagail’s group:

 

Gary Sinise (Forrest Gump and Apollo 13) is Stu Redman. 

Molly Ringwald (The Breakfast Club and Pretty In Pink) is Frannie Goldsmith.

Ossie Davis (Do the Right Thing and Bubba Ho-Tep) is Judge Richard Farris

Adam Storke (Mystic Pizza and Highway to Hell) is Larry Underwood.

Ray Walston (The Apartment and My Favorite Martian) is Glen Bateman.

Rob Lowe (St. Elmo’s Fire and The Outsiders) is Nick Andros.

Bill Fagerbakke (The voice of Patrick Star in many of the Sponge Bob movies) is Tom Cullen.

And

Ruby Dee (Do the Right Thing and Cat People) is Mother Abagail.

 

 

 

Randall Flagg’s group:

 

Laura San Giacomo (Pretty Woman and Sex, Lies, and Videotape) is Nadine Cross

Miguel Ferrer (RoboCop and Twin Peaks: The Return) is Lloyd Henreid.

Matt Frewer (Watchmen and Dawn of the Dead) is Trashcan Man.

Corin Nemec (Drop Zone and Operation Dumbo Drop) is Harold Luader.

Shawnee Smith (Saw movies and The Blob) is Julie Lawry

Rick Aviles (Ghost and Mystery Train) is Rat Man

Sam Anderson (LOST and Critters 2) is Whitney Morgan

Sam Raimi (director of Evil Dead and the original Spiderman trilogy) is Bobby Terry

And

Jamey Sheriden (Sully and The Ice Storm) is Randall Flagg.

 

 

What can I say about this cast?  It’s a who’s who of 90’s stars.  I mean if you got to see two or three of these names it’s a big deal.  But there’s more than just two or three stars here.  OK, it’s over six hours with the commercials taken out.  I broke it up into three viewings and it never seemed to be boring.  There are some slow spots and there is one really weird moment in the last half hour that is sort of a cop out on the ending, but it is what it is.  I read the book, and I have to say this is one of the more faithful or at least closest interpretation of a Stephen King story that I can think of that was a TV miniseries.  I think The Stand falls in line just behind Storm of the Century as far as Stephen King TV miniseries are concerned.  I want to see the remake but it’s even longer and I’m afraid it won't stand up to the original.  I’ve wanted to include this for a few Countdown to Halloween celebrations now.  Originally, I was going to use it after I got a copy of it for Christmas in 2019.  Well, then our own version of Captain Tripps happened and that was that.  Now here we are in 2024, nearly five years after I got my copy, I’ve finally included it.  Oddly enough the original copy I got for Christmas isn’t the copy I watched as earlier this year I bought a better copy than what I had.  This is probably in reality three and a quarter stars but no quarter stars allowed on Letterboxd so I will go with three and a half M-O-O-N’s out of five.