
With a cast that includes over 125 speaking roles, including Gary Sinise, Rob Lowe, Kathy Bates, and Ed Harris (!), The Stand gave the small-screen an epic anamorphic scope while raising the bar on what kinds of stories you could tell on television. Lines are drawn and sides are taken as one group gathers around the prophet Mother Abagail ( Ruby Dee) as the future of what’s left of mankind hangs in the balance. ( Rose Red also succeeded with its then-novel marketing approach, with ABC executing a fake website for fictional university featured in the film.) As scary as evil spirits and the dark can be, Rose Red tells us that nothing haunts us more than the scariest parts of ourselves.įor King fans, when asked which is the best ‘90s-era adaptation, it’s a Sophie’s choice between It and 1994’s The Stand, with a slight edge going to the latter.ĪBC’s epic ratings hit rivals most feature films in terms of cast, as it brings one of King’s most evil villains to life, the demonic Randall Flagg ( Jamey Sheridan), as a plague wipes out society and its survivors are forced to rebuild in a post-apocalyptic world. Like Jackson’s book, or Wise’s film, Rose Red invests the characters with a vice grip of psychological horror, one that tightens as more unexplained things go bump in the night. Baxley and actors Nancy Travis, Matt Ross, and Julian Sands grapple with Seattle’s scariest haunted mansion.


In the first three minutes of this three-part installment, Rose Red emerges as the far superior telling of the haunted house story, as director Craig R.

Originally conceived as a theatrical release, with a pitch by King to Steven Spielberg in 1996 (Spielberg would go on to executive produce the awful 1999 The Haunting remake), Rose Red is a loose remake of Jackson’s story (and Robert Wise’s movie about it) that underwent changes to fit the miniseries format following the 1999 Haunting’s release.
