"THE STAND," a tremendously long novel that is now an ABC miniseries, is extremely important to its author, Stephen King.
The tale of a man-made virus that destroys most of the world's population and sets up a battle between good and evil among the survivors is "in some ways . . . the most important thing I've ever written," King said in a recent interview.Which is why King became much more involved in the production of this miniseries than he has in the television adaptations of any of his other works.
"I thought, `If I'm going to do this, let me jump in the whole way. I'll do the script. I'll stick with it down the line. I'll make the revisions. I won't turn it over to anybody else. I'll exec produce.' "
He even took a small role in the miniseries.
"So, I worked very hard. And, even more important, I consigned myself to Utah, which has a higher canned-fruit and Jell-O consumption per capita - sometimes the two of them together - than any other state in the world. And I did that and I'm not ashamed of it, because I kind of got to like it."
"But there are a lot of nice people in Utah," executive producer Richard P. Rubinstein quickly interjected.
"Yeah, there are a lot of nice people in Utah," King agreed. "We didn't meet too many of them, but. . . ."
After years of trying to get "The Stand" made as a feature movie, King said he was thrilled to be working on it as a four-part, eight-hour miniseries.
"It was such a relief because I'd tried to do it a couple of times as a theatrical" film, he said. "And it was just so long. It was like trying to sit on a suitcase and get all your stuff back in. And I couldn't do it."
The expanded version of "The Stand" runs more than 1,300 pages. The miniseries is based on the shorter version, which is about 400 pages briefer.
And, while it was a difficult task to cut even the shorter version down for TV, King said he has no regrets about the undertaking.
"I decided to do the adaptation because I wanted to carry through all the way," he said. "If it was going to get done - and it was my decision to let ABC do it, ultimately - I wanted to end up with a situation where people would look at me and say, `I really like what you did' and I would be able to feel that I had a direct hand in it.
"And if I really screwed it up big time, they would be able to come directly to me and say, `You really messed up' and I'd be able to take the rap for that."
Actually, the novel and the miniseries have the same strengths and weaknesses. Both start out a lot stronger than they finish.
As the miniseries opens, there's a major containment breach at a top-secret government lab - a breach that unleashes a deadly, man-made virus that soon spreads across the country and around the world, leaving millions dead in its wake.
It's a terrifying scenario. And the fate of the few thousand who are somehow immune to the plague is also horrifying - they're nearly alone amidst death and destruction of unimaginable proportions.
The first two parts of the miniseries, which deal with the spread of the plague, are its best segments. There's one sequence that even scared King.
"There's a scene that scared me to write that's set in the tunnel . . . when these people get out of New York," King said. "And when I saw it on film, it scared me. And there's a sequence . . . where Stu Redman (Gary Sinise) is trying to escape from this facility that's really full of dead people. It's become a graveyard. For me, that's scary.
"And some of the dream sequences are scary. When I read the stuff over, I don't think I scare myself. What I'm trying to judge then is whether or not it will scare anybody else. And if I think it will, I get this kind of little maniacal grin that's trying to surface on my face now because, underneath of course, I'm quite insane."
King himself can't explain what inspires him to write his stories.
"I don't know where it comes from. Everything seems normal and then I sit down at the typewriter . . . and Charlie Starkweather comes out," he said.
Unfortunately, the miniseries - like the book - can't maintain that level of horror and suspense. By the end of Part 2, the focus has switched to a battle between good and evil.
On the side of the former, there's the elderly Mother Abigail (Ruby Dee), a mystical woman who - through dreams - inspires the "good" survivors to follow her to Boulder, Colo., where they set up a new community.
And on the side of the latter, there's Randall Flagg (Jamey Sheridan), the devil incarnate, who leads his followers to Las Vegas. (Now that's a wonderful touch.)
But all of the mystical goings-on can't compare to sheer terror of the plague. And the miniseries' climax is actually quite anti-climactic.
Local fans will get a kick out of all the Utah locales. When Mother Abigail's disciples reach "Colorado," what they're seeing is an easily identifiable Utah mountain. Refineries supposedly in Indiana are also in Utah, and Salt Lake City's Avenues sub for Boulder.
There's also extensive footage of "Nevada" that's really shot in Utah's deserts.
Although there's a good deal of death and violence, "The Stand" doesn't begin to compare to theatrical movies in those respects. Even the gore - and there is some gore - isn't out of control.
This despite ABC's basically hands-off approach to the production.
"They said they didn't want too much snot, if we could avoid it. `The Stand' is about the plague and the plague is basically a jumped-up flu strain and they were concerned," King said. "One of the Standards and Practices people said, `There's a lot of mucus in this book.' So we have some special-effects mucus but Mick (director Mick Galin) was very good about it. Mick was very sort of laid-back on the mucus."
"I tried to keep it as snot-free as possible," Galin added.
There's also a scene in which several of the survivors return to a hospital to discover it has become a horror chamber of death. One character, played by Corin Nemec, "is sick when he comes out and vomits and then goes over into the bushes to vomit some more and he sees these nurses' legs sticking out and there are these worms crawling all over them," King said. "And it's sort of a special moment for me."
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Additional Information
Broadcast Schedule
Stephen King's eight-hour "The Stand" airs over four nights on ABC (Ch. 4).
The miniseries premieres Sunday, continues Monday and Wednesday, and concludes Thursday. It will air from 8 until 10 p.m. each night.