Written by John Edward Betancourt Caution: This article contains spoilers for the series premiere of ‘The Stand’. Something that is truly fascinating about stories that revolve around the end of the world, is that these tales tend to sanitize what would be a genuinely horrifying experience, and it makes sense as to why that is the case. After all, audiences dive into a particular story to be entertained over anything else and watching or reading about the chaos that ensues as everything mankind has worked to build, collapses around dynamic characters… is an unsettling experience for certain. One that few could argue offers genuine entertainment value. So instead, storytellers tend to gloss over the end and get right to the rebuilding process so that the audience can instead feel inspiration and hope. But once in a great while, a story comes along that holds nothing back in its exploration of what the world would look like if it ended tomorrow, and what tomorrow would look like for the survivors of the apocalypse and one particular tale that perfectly encapsulates the horror of such an event is Stephen King’s The Stand. For his sweeping epic about a world decimated by the creation of a super flu nicknamed ‘Captain Trips’, held nothing back in its exploration of how the end would bring mankind to its knees. Before shifting gears to become a modern re-telling of the Book of Revelations, one that was as much about overcoming the evil within our souls as it was about overcoming the evil of Randall Flagg. But while King’s novel is a visceral and horrifying experience, one that truly puts the savagery of man on display, the 1994 miniseries adaptation of the book, suffered from the aforementioned sanitization, despite the fact that King wrote the screenplay himself. A problem that like ties into the era in which it was released, since Director Mick Garris and King ran into problems with ABC in regard to what they could and could not show on television in the 1990s. But thankfully, now that horror is mainstream at last and now that networks and producers are eager to push the envelope in order to tell bold stories that keep people talking, King’s sprawling story about the end of the world is finally getting the proper respect it deserves on CBS All Access. For a new iteration of The Stand arrived on the streaming service today and well, it is definitely everything fans of this book and of horror could hope for and more. Because ‘The End’ really does offer up a no-holds barred exploration of the end of the world, since everything we see in the opening chapter of this limited series is about as bleak as it gets. For once ‘Captain Trips’ takes hold in the United States, it doesn’t take long for the world to fall apart, and it is the swift manner in which writer/director Josh Boone ends the modern world that makes this premiere so horrifying. Because we would like to think that mankind would put up a fight and try and beat this thing. But instead, our species collectively succumbs to the super flu with minimal fuss, allowing for everything we hold dear to disappear in the blink of an eye. But while that concept alone is horrifying enough, and painfully relevant since we are in the midst of a pandemic right now… it is the response of our main characters that truly allows for the horror in question to unfold. Take Frannie Goldsmith’s journey for instance, since she is forced to watch her father, her rock, waste away under the flu’s influence before burying him in her own backyard and being left to her own devices and seeing the world collapse around her pushes her to nearly take her own life. And for that matter, Stu Redman’s journey is one that is also of note, simply because his immunity to the super flu puts him in a burdensome place. One where he is forced to watch people suffer and succumb to the virus while he soldiers on and watching that play out is quite unsettling for certain since it lends to the hopeless nature of the story. However, what’s truly amazing about this opening chapter, is that its portrayal of the end is so bleak and so powerful, that you get lost within the devastation and that’s a good thing. Because it adds gravity to the arrival of Randall Flagg and it invests the viewer in the bigger story that is brewing. Because the closing moments of this tale make it clear that evil is trying to corrupt or destroy everything good about humanity and just like that… you want to see it fail and that definitely compels you to continue to the journey so you can see Flagg’s defeat, and so that you can see what other horrors await us down the line storytelling wise. Because if this series premiere is any indication of what is to come, then we are going to be in for once visceral and terrifying experience, one that truly explores the darkness that we carry and what it will take to conquer it. Until next time.
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