Four-and-a-half hours is admittedly a pretty big time commitment for entertainment. That's about 19 percent of a full day, or 30 percent of waking hours for an individual who gets nine hours of sleep per night. If a person is going to commit to watching any single program that long, it better damn well be good. With that in mind, I couldn't more wholly recommend Storm Of The Century, the 1999 miniseries written by Stephen King that is now available on streaming for the first time.
As the world is now headed full-bore into Halloween season, those with a Hulu subscription have been offered a wonderful and surprising gift, as Storm Of The Century is now available in the streaming service's library in the form that it was originally aired: as three chapters that each run 85-90 minutes in length. The news that the miniseries is available to legally watch online was recently highlighted by Stephen King personally, who used his personal Twitter account to both alert fans and express his awesome appreciation of the work:
STORM OF THE CENTURY, my favorite of the miniseries I've written, is now available on Hulu, UNCUT and UNRATED.September 2, 2022
Stephen King calling Storm Of The Century the favorite of the miniseries that he's written is an amazing superlative, and an opinion that he has shared before. He expressed the same sentiment back in December 2020 when the latest miniseries adaptation of The Stand was debuting on what is now called Paramount+. He praised the TV event for its authenticity, noting that it was filmed during a winter in Southwest Harbor in Maine, and offered particular appreciation for Colm Feore's performance as the demonic central antagonist.
Storm Of The Century is not based on a novel, but instead an original teleplay that Stephen King wrote after having having success writing miniseries adaptations of The Stand in 1994 and The Shining in 1997. The horror story begins in a small town on the fictional Little Tall Island (a location King previously used as the setting of Dolores Claiborne), and begins as a dangerous stranger named Andre Linoge (Colm Feore) arrives.
The man immediately introduces himself as a threat, murdering an old woman with his cane and then waiting for the police to show up to the scene, but the danger he represents becomes ever more apparent as a horrible blizzard hits and everyone on the island has to take shelter. In addition to Feore, the stellar cast of Storm Of The Century also includes Tim Daly, Spencer Breslin, Becky Ann Baker, Debrah Farentino, and Stephen King veteran actors Jeffrey DeMunn (The Shawshank Redemption, The Green Mile, The Mist) and Julianne Nicholson (The Outsider).
It's a great addition to the Hulu library, which already has some great content if you're a Stephen King fan. The miniseries 11.22.63 was the first ever King adaptation made directly for a streaming service, and subscribers can enjoy two seasons of Castle Rock, which was an on-going series made as a love letter to King's stories.
For a deeper dive into Stephen King's history with Hollywood, my weekly Adapting Stephen King column has spent the last 16 months chronicling the history of King's books and stories being brought to film and television. You can also check out my ranking of the best Stephen King movies of all time, and learn about everything that is presently in the works via our Upcoming Stephen King Movies and TV guide.
