Where would we be without it Stephen King? The wildly prolific writer has not only had his hand in so many of the horror genre’s cookie jars, but has also had a hand on the furnace that fires them. Nicely situated amid media monoliths such as the political sci-fi of the 1960s, the exploitative grindhouse of the 1970s and the hardcore camp of the 1980s, King’s work demonstrates an ever-changing synergy of high and low art alongside a sustained , ambitious, pioneering curiosity. The man simply refuses to stay in one place for too long, and he declares himself mayor of every stylistic city he visits (at least in Maine).
His work has also inspired countless moments of iconic cinema. From evil pets and psychokinetic children to evil clowns and sentient cars, King has delivered a litany of cultural touchstones that have been transferred to film without losing their often stunning human drama. Even work that doesn’t bear his name still bears his watermark. However, there are two titles that seem unrelated. That is because The Langoliers miniseries was sadly filtered and forgotten, and Lost somehow managed to avoid association with it.
Stephen King’s influence on Lindelof and Lost
Currently, it’s hard to think of a more prominent King acolyte than Mike Flanagan. Flanagan has adapted Gerald’s game and Doctor Sleepand was supposedly helping an expectant Dark Tower series (if you listened closely to the night sky when this news was announced, you could almost hear the excited screams of countless fans). In addition, programs such as Midnight Mass and Hill house let Stephen King write all about it – so much so that the latter show even got public approval from King himself. But King’s lesser-known student, though no less important, is creator Damon Lindelof.
Visionary creator of LostHBO is hopelessly underrated The leftoversand the new one Guardians limited series, Lindelof has made no secret of how influenced and inspired he is by the generations spanning horror writer. It’s a little less obvious here, because Lindelof doesn’t deal exclusively in horror, as Flanagan does. But his approach to characters, backstory and mystery is classic King.
Lindelof’s in particular Lost wears the king’s influence on his sleeve, with The score, King’s doorstop of a 1978 novel, which helps dictate a framework for the show’s character approach and backstory. But there’s something else lurking in the background of it Lost – and that’s a more obscure title called King The Langoliers.
What is The Langoliers about?
First written as a novella for the underread Four past midnight collection, The Langoliers is perhaps best known for its 1995 two-part miniseries adaptation for ABC – a hazy camp party of epic proportions. Written for the screen and directed by Tom Holland (not the one who played Spider-Man, but the one who directed Scare Night and the first child’s play, among other horror classics), this eerie tale with a Lewis Carroll-esque title tells the story of a plane that mysteriously disappears en route to Boston and is transported to another dimension where elapsed time is eaten by the titular monsters.
While The Langoliers doesn’t offer the kind of lovable, three-dimensional characters we’re so familiar with Lostit offers plenty of mystery and creepiness, anticipating the wildly popular “missing planes” TV series of the following decades (Lost, Manifesto, Yellowjackets, Missing Nine, Flight 29 Down, The Wilds).
The writing is ridiculous throughout The Langoliers, and the performances are over the top; The Netherlands is clearly better at horror titles with elements of camp and comedy, and The Langoliers must be serious and fraught with fear. Depicted in all their ’90s CGI glory, the monsters look grotesquely artificial, but nonetheless have an uncanny creepiness to them. The Langoliers is the television equivalent of the tonal dichotomy presented by Kubrick’s adaptation of The shining: absurd melodrama, inexplicably combined with a deeply disturbing existential terror. Except for The Langoliers languished in oblivion.
The high-flying performances in Lost and Langoliers
And then there’s the matter of Bronson Pinchot’s character Craig Toomy, who is in many ways a precursor to William Mapother’s resident creep Ethan Rom. Lost. Toomy is the centerpiece of the film’s horror and is the source for the mythology of the titular Langoliers, monsters who chase and eat children who are “lazy” and “don’t see the big picture.” This eerie fable, told to Toomy in his youth by his abusive father, becomes the origin of his self-punitive psychosis, and it’s made worse by the fact that this multidimensional detour has resulted in Toomy missing an all-important business meeting.
Pinchot is especially memorable to impressionable young viewers for his sweaty, unhinged performance; the man feels dangerous, unpredictable and real. He has a habit of tearing paper slowly to calm himself down, and it’s just about the scariest thing ever. However, like the rest of the cast and crew, Pinchot abandons subtlety in favor of high register operas, and he is a large part of what The Langoliers so entertaining.
Like many other King TV adaptations (eg IT, Salem’s Lot, and the forgotten Red rose), the Dutch miniseries lasts about three hours, which is probably longer than a story like this deserves. After all, it was a short story at first. Much of what makes it interesting, though, is holding on and lurking for answers, alongside a cast that includes David Morse as a bone-dry pilot and Dean Stockwell as a mind-bogglingly verbose, Poirot-esque mystery writer. .
Like with Lost, so much of what works here has less to do with the answers and more to do with the questions. Even more pronounced than the mystery is that sense of duration, as much of the movie’s running time takes place on the plane, and so it starts to feel like you’re on a long, red-eye across the country too.
Stephen King then and now
Every TV era has had its strengths and weaknesses. The ’90s weren’t obsessed with the sleek, impenetrable filmmaking that characterizes so much of what’s being made today. Today, character psychology reigns supreme, when back then the self-contained episodic structure of shows still dictated what was most interesting to us. Opaque, inconsistent worlds like those in The X files and Twin Peaks (their ’90s iterations, at least) couldn’t find such great success in today’s serialized landscape (as evidenced by their recent iterations).
The 1995 adaptation of The Langoliers embodies a 1990s sensibility in TV storytelling, and a 2023 version of the story would look very different: more serious, grounded, and far less ridiculous, with genuine character pathos oozing from every line of dialogue. You can watch recent King adaptations like The maverick, Doctor Sleepand (lest we forget) that of Andy Muschietti THE duology – it seems they are all covered in a thick seriousness, a refusal to have too much fun.
There’s nothing wrong with being serious, and these works are very good in their own right (some more than others). But to throw on 1995’s The Langoliers in 2023 is to hearken back to an era when King stories like this didn’t have to be more than what they were: silly, ridiculous, over-the-top TV movies of the week.
Lost at the turn of the century
You could say that Lost about the divide between the silly TV movies of the ’90s and the psychological character drama of the 2000s. The groundbreaking show offered simple, cheesy action and melodrama thrills, while also leaving viewers hungry for juicy, complex characters and profound meditations on global themes. It proved successful in many of its pursuits, but while the iconic characters are (for the most part) nothing to sneeze at, the most viscerally addictive thing about it is Lost was the accumulation of questions and mysteries. That’s what we came for, and because we grew to love the characters so much, we stayed on the train even as the mystery and mythology went off the rails.
Lost stood with one foot in the era of network television and the other in the era of prestige cable. We loved it for both the serialized weirdness and stunning characterization. The Langoliers is the first half of that equation – we might not care that much, but we love watching the whole messy nightmare unfold.
Although it is not on streaming channels if you want to watch it The Langoliersyou can buy it on Vudu or watch the full three hours below: