release year: 1999 (made-for-TV)
genre: Stephen King horror
viewing setting: home VHS, 3/28/99
what I expected: I had no idea
what I got: a 6-hour horror/drama with some interesting aspects
synopsis: An island town is cut off from the world during a bad blizzard, and a strange character comes a-calling, and death comes with him.
impressions: This was a drama at heart - it spent a lot of time letting us get to know the cast of characters. It was slow at times, especially in the beginning, but it seemed to pick up about halfway through. I can't talk about it much more without spoiling it for you, but suffice it to say that things came down to a bunch of regular people forced to deal with something highly irregular.
body count: less than ten, no explicit gore of course
acting: All of the leads did good jobs; the bad guy in particular turned in a creepy performance.
the good: neat idea (once we finally find out what's going on) and cool ending
the bad: slow start
final word: good watching when you're ready for a long, drawn-out horror/drama
rating: C