The Stand Review - Entertainment Weekly
06 May 1994
One of the most enjoyable things about Stephen King's The Stand is its sheer messy sprawl. Spread out over four nights for a total of eight hours, this adaptation of Stephen King's jumbo 1978 novel has everything from mystical malarkey about Good vs. Evil to rotting corpses filling up New York City's Lincoln Tunnel. It's a TV movie schlocky enough to have Rob Lowe as one of its heroes, yet witty enough to cast him as a mute.
The Stand starts with a deadly flu virus that leaks out of a California lab and spreads around the world, killing nearly everyone in its path. America goes kerflooie: With no one at the controls, everything from electrical power to law enforcement shuts down. The few survivors of this plague divide into two opposing camps: a group of good-hearted idealists inspired by the wisdom of a 106-year-old woman called Mother Abagail (Ruby Dee); and a band of marauding thugs led by Randall Flagg (Jamey Sheridan, of Shannon's Deal), who may or may not be Satan, but is at least very naughty.
Among the good folks we're supposed to root for are Molly Ringwald, Gary Sinise (Of Mice and Men), Picket Fences' Ray Walston, and Corin Nemec (Parker Lewis Can't Lose). Those on the side of evil include Laura San Giacomo (sex, lies and videotape), Matt Frewer (Max Headroom), and Miguel Ferrer (Twin Peaks) as a hood who talks into the barrel of a gun as if it were a microphone.
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