The Worst Creature From Another Dimension Is Clearly TV’s THE LANGOLIERS

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Right now is a fantastic time to be a Stephen King fan, especially if you enjoy seeing his stories adapted for the screen. While not every adaptation is a hit, things are much better than they used to be. I remember a time – the 1990s – when King adaptations were often cheesy or just plain bad. And while I have a soft spot for some of them, one stands out as particularly awful: the miniseries *The Langoliers*. It took a really good, scary, and imaginative story and completely ruined it with some truly terrible monsters.

Okay, let me just say it: I’m here to talk about how disappointing the Langoliers were in that 1995 TV miniseries. The creatures in Stephen King’s original short story, from the *Four Past Midnight* collection, are genuinely terrifying. They don’t just *eat* things; they devour the past, anything that’s still hanging around from moments gone by. To me, they’re a brilliant metaphor for the relentless nature of capitalism – a system that will destroy anyone who tries to pause and reflect. King really captured their horror; here’s one of my favorite descriptions that really gets across how terrifying they are to witness…

Strange, monstrous faces seemed to be trapped inside the racing balls. These weren’t solid faces, but shimmering, ghostly images like glowing mist. They barely had eyes, just small dents, but their mouths were enormous – wide, cavernous openings filled with rows of constantly moving, blurred teeth. As the balls rolled forward, they consumed everything in their path, gobbling up the world around them.

It’s actually quite amusing that the creatures in ABC’s miniseries largely resemble Stephen King’s description of the Langoliers in his original story – both in how they look, sound, and move. However, they still look terrible, which should have been apparent before the show was even made.

The special effects in the mid-90s just weren’t good enough to create believable langoliers. The technology hadn’t advanced that far – and clearly couldn’t even manage a realistic-looking plane, as seen in the trailer! Instead of terrifying, otherworldly creatures, the langoliers look like pixelated versions of the Chain Chomp from *Super Mario Bros.*, as if designed by someone with a high fever. They resemble something you’d see in a cheap SyFy movie, probably made by an amateur using basic computer graphics. These monsters don’t have the menacing, joyful quality Stephen King described; they feel like a discarded, failed video game from the Atari era, quickly buried and forgotten.

They look dumb. Really, really dumb. Impossible to overstate how dumb they looked.

Even with better special effects, any attempt to adapt Stephen King’s *The Langoliers* would have struggled with a core issue. The story’s horror comes from the fact that the creatures are never fully understood or clearly seen. Though the characters perceive them through sight and sound, the langoliers are so terrifying and move so quickly that they remain blurry and indistinct. As King himself wrote:

I couldn’t believe my eyes. There was a Texaco fuel truck sitting right on the edge of the taxiway, and then *they* hit it. The langoliers… they just descended on it, a whirlwind of teeth and blurred shapes. It was horrifying – they tore through the truck without even slowing down, just… consumed it completely.

These creatures are so terrifying that the human mind struggles to fully grasp the horror, even when witnessing them. They inspire a deep, unsettling fear that goes beyond anything you can see – it’s something you simply *feel*. A picture or video just can’t capture that level of dread.

Bringing cosmic horror to the screen isn’t impossible. You can successfully portray otherworldly characters and dimensions that feel genuinely strange and unsettling. However, to truly overcome the challenges of adapting such stories, the onscreen monsters need to be genuinely frightening. A good example of what *not* to do is ABC’s ‘Langoliers,’ which ended up looking ridiculous. The build-up to their reveal—the distant sounds, the fearful descriptions—created huge expectations. When they finally appeared, the actual design was far more disappointing than if they’d been shown right away. The anticipation actually ruined the effect.

The miniseries *The Langoliers* faced several issues, but a major one really hurt the impact of its terrifying creatures. The casting of Bronson Pinchot as Craig Toomey, a deeply disturbed businessman haunted by a difficult childhood, was a significant misstep. Toomey is the character who knows about the langoliers and warns everyone else, and his backstory is meant to build dread – unfortunately, the performance didn’t quite achieve that effect.

I’m a big fan of Bronson Pinochet, and while he wasn’t a perfect fit as Toomey, he’s not a bad actor. The problem is, the more he talks about the Langoliers, the less scary they become. When the Langoliers finally appear, they’re surprisingly goofy, which makes the whole thing a really funny joke. It’s genuinely hilarious.

People say it’s incredibly scary, which isn’t a good sign. And considering that “not great” is the best review anyone’s ever given the TV miniseries *The Langoliers*, it’s safe to say it was truly awful.

Mikey Walsh writes for TopMob and is a big fan of the movie *The Langoliers*. You can find him on Bluesky at @burgermike, and he’s always up for a discussion about ranking the Targaryen kings.

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2025-10-16 19:04