Storm’s A-Comin’

In his latest ABC sweeps extravaganza, Stephen King sure hits close to home for Mainers.

The backdrop for “Storm of the Century,” airing at 9 p.m. Feb. 14, 15 and 18, is the bane of Mainers’ existence, the paralyzing snowstorm.

Now, as veterans of the ice storm of ’98 will attest, such occurrences are rare and can provoke anxiety, but are hardly extraordinary.

Next, add that the setting for “Storm” is Little Tall Island, known previously to King fans as the home of Dolores Claiborne. As the storm rages, 200 of the island’s residents soon find themselves without power and cut off from Machias on the mainland, located beyond an impassable two-mile reach.

As islanders can attest, storms happen. Generations of practice leave island residents generally prepared to handle most anything that nature can throw at them.

Finally, top off the weather and the loss of electricity with a visitor. This stranger, malevolence in the guise of a man, commits a heinous crime (no, not keeping short lobsters) and ends up in the jail cell at the back of the general store operated by Mike Anderson, who also is the town’s constable.

Turns out that’s precisely where Andre Linoge wants to be. It seems he knows the darkest secrets of everyone on Little Tall Island. And as he sits on his jail-cell bunk, staring straight ahead, bodies start to pile up as his machinations ignite dark passions long kept suppressed by townfolk.

Before long, Linoge (played by Colm Feore) issues his ultimatum: “Give me what I want and I’ll go away.” And, naturally, he wants more than some lobsters to ship.

What does he want? Anderson (played by Tim Daly of “Wings”) and his fellow islanders slowly discern that the supernatural Linoge is behind the deaths plaguing their town, and they are willing to do what they must to be rid of him. As he reveals at an impromptu meeting early in the third installment, that price will be steep.

In “Storm of the Century,” King examines the results of the community pulling together for the common good. As he writes in the introduction to the Pocket Books paperback version of the screenplay, “Does the idea of `community’ always warm the cockles of the heart, or does it on occasion chill the blood?”

The people of Little Tall are generally decent, well-meaning, God-fearing. But that’s what makes their ultimate decision all the more horrific.

As Mike Anderson, Daly is convincing as the pillar of the community who opts for good over evil, consequences be damned. As Molly Anderson (his wife), Debrah Farentino plays a woman who is caring and good-hearted, yet chooses to do whatever is necessary for the town’s survival.

Other standouts in the cast are Casey Siemaszko as Anderson’s conflicted helper, Alton Hatcher; Feore as the evil Linoge and Becky Ann Baker as community organizer Ursula Goodsoe.

(King has his usual cameo, as a sleazy lawyer advertising on TV. WVII reporters Eliza Boxer and Greg McQuade also have roles in the movie. All those scenes were filmed at WVII, as were all the national promotional ads featuring King, a singular honor for a small-market station.)

“Storm of the Century” is King’s first screenplay expressly written for TV, instead of being adapted from an existing work. Working from King’s screenplay, director Craig Baxley brings things to a boil slowly, with the climactic town meeting more terrifying than any of the carnage that has come before.

While “Storm” is not the best King work done on television (“The Stand” would be), it’s among the best. It builds suspense incrementally, with appropriate doses of terror, and should keep viewers at the edge of their seats through the six hours.