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Underground > Film, TV & Theatre >

Darabont's adaptation of King's novella THE MIST

  
 
Mark Parsons
21:25 / 24.11.07
Caught this a few days back and WOW what a stunner of an ending. I knew I was in for it when they started playing Dead Can Dance's "The Seraphim" which was featured to incandescent effect in BARAKA too.

I enjoyed the movie very much although based in audience figeting, it might have benefitted from ten minutes of trimming. There were a number of gasps and exclamation of "No Way" for that ending BTW.

There's also a nice tip of the hat to Carpenter's THE THING and King's DARK TOWER, although don't expect anything fancy as the homages are straight-forward.
 
 
Mist van der Rohe
(prev. Cletus Van Mist)
23:37 / 22.01.08
Yes, that was a great movie! Iīve just seen this (it started here last week), and thatīs a really satisfying movie. Often, when Iīm bored with a movie, I think, it might be me. That Iīm too blasé, having seen so many films over the years, so that nothing can impress me. And then a movie like The Mist comes along, and I know, I can expect more from all these multimillion dollar movies, and itīs their failure and lack of entertainment.

The actors were mostly good, which often is rare with monster/suspense/horror movies, with the exception of the mad christian woman, who didnīt convince me. She was clearly only acting mad. I especially liked the bleakness of that certain kind of decision so many of the people made.

The monsters were wonderful, didnīt look silly or too artificial and felt like a genuine threat that just didnīt care and plowed along. Like termites or ants that eat everything that crosses their path.

And yes, that ending! I knew, there was something coming, and luckily, no one spoiled it for me, and I really didnīt see that one coming.
 
 
Dead Megatron
00:08 / 23.01.08
And yes, that ending! I knew, there was something coming, and luckily, no one spoiled it for me, and I really didnīt see that one coming.

I kinda did. [CRIPTIC SPOILER ALERT]I saw it from the moment the car ran out of gas, to be exact. I mean it is a very strong tragic resource for characters to make rash decisions in times of desperation that end up proving to be too hasty. And,considering the tragedy aspect of the film (heck, the crazy lady even used the word "hubris" at some point), I thought the end fit it perfectly.
 
 
woodenpidgeon
13:35 / 31.01.08
******************SPOILERS AHEAD*******************
Okay, I saw this movie back in October based on the heaps of praise and 'great ending' it was receiving. Honestly, this was the 2nd most disappointing film for me last year (Elizabeth takes the fricking cake).
While I agree with the politics of crazy nutso Christian spooks being bad for community, this was just hammy. Bad writing. There's just too much back and forth in the supermarket. I remember thinking, 'Gawd if they spend 80 minutes trapped in this supermarket with this looney lady rilling the troops against them, this will seem so much like 16 year old's creative writing class.' Surprise.
So when they finally decide to roll out, and the tired Lisa Gerrard track booms (have i heard this in 3 or 4 other films so far?) I'm really expecting nothing. But then on the way out of town something actually happens that's cool. There are some gigantic (dare I say Lovecraftian) creatures looming hundreds of feet in the air. Wow. The earth really feels like it's over. This is scary, and I'm almost willing to forgive the previous nonsense. There's finally some magnitude to this story.
Well then comes the trite, silly, stupid, stupid end. Dumb Frank Darrabont, Shawshank was a miracle, you hack. You are King's fan-boy. You based your entire film and 2+ years of your life around shocking with this ending, and it doesn't fit your film. Though he kills everyone in the car and doesn't have to, though he must live on with this knowledge, 6 tanks and a flame thrower isn't going to clean up the gigantic spectacle that you just made us party to. It's the exact opposite of the 'Deus ex Machina' it's a 'diabolus ex machina' (someone fix my latin). Out of left field you have this ridiculous military home-run happen so you can layer on another helping of gee-wow sucks to be you. Because what is really a bleaker ending-the annihilation of all mankind any trace of the earth and it's occupants, or two old farts, a lady, and a kid? This is better material for a Twilight Zone episode. It'd be 60 minutes shorter, and for god sakes dramatically everything would build to this moment, and not have the entire film be a red herring.
 
 
Mark Parsons
01:53 / 01.02.08
I disagree. Ending the world is hard to get across emotionally without a POV character. Wossname's world DOES end and to make matters worse, it was all a matter of shitty timing AND all those timid assholes in the supermarket probably wound up surviving. Also, you seem to have missed the idea that the Mist was receding when the army came by. By implication, the huge thing overhead may have been heading back home. The crisis has passed, but the quartet have lost hope, etc.

As was the case in CLOVERFIELD, what we had been watching in the MIST was not the traditional main event (army & science vs creatures; daring rescues and heroic heroes). we see people reacting in fear and making what turns out to be several very bad choices.

I do think that the movie could have benefitted from a ten minute trim, but overall, I thought that most of the supermarket scenes were very effective.
 
 
CameronStewart
02:58 / 01.02.08
The thing that really blew the ending for me, or at least stretched credibility to its' breaking point, was that the mist cleared and the army rolled in SECONDS after he shot the group. I know that's supposed to be a further turn of the screw - "oh, if only he'd waited one more minute, they would have been saved and his boy would still be alive!" - but it felt ludicrous. I would have preferred to see him shoot everyone, then wander through the mist for a while, some kind of cut or fade to suggest the passage of at least SOME time, before seeing the army.

I was expecting the film to end Birds-style, with the van driving out to an uncertain future.
 
 
Liger, Audaciously Hopefull
(prev. Liger Null)
22:31 / 07.04.08
I was expecting the film to end Birds-style, with the van driving out to an uncertain future.

That's how the original ending was in the short story. I haven't yet seen the film, although the story is one of my favorites by King. All this talk of a new, "bleaker" ending bothers me, though I should probably reserve my opinion until I've seen the movie.

***Short Story Spoiler****
*
*
*


They drive away, (the old man gets snatched by critters, if I recall correctly) They see some BIG critters, then manage to find shelter in a motel or something. The protagonist is tuning the radio, becoming discouraged after finding no trace of a signal, until he hears one word. He goes into the bedroom and whispers two words into his little boy's ear:

"The first word is 'Hartford', the second is 'hope'."

Thus you have both hope and uncertainty.
 
 
Eskay Uno
00:28 / 08.04.08
I really liked the film. Never read the story either so I had no clue what to expect. Saw the black and white version, which helped to make it feel even more bleak and otherworldly. The ending was totally unexpected but very effective. It reminded me of those horror movies that haunted me as a kid, the ones where the heroes very nearly defeat the horror but are devoured at the very end and then the credits role (like the first Nightmare on Elm Street or the cheesy but strangely engaging Lair of the White Worm).

The timing of the mist clearing/the army's arrival totally worked for me. The film is about hope in the face of utter despair, and the places it can take you. The interesting thing is that it lead most of the characters down the path of violence. Only one person showed both courage and faith without violence, the first person to enter the mist, the woman looking for her kids.

Thomas Jane fought against the despair as best he could but he was doomed from the start. He was set up right away as someone confrontational and not afraid to use his fists (which is kinda odd for an artist, isn't it?). He was also set-up as lacking in better-judgement, in the scene where he says he knew he should have saved his paintings from the storm but simply neglected to. So here we have a strong headed and somewhat domineering character with a lazy propensity for action. In the final act, he loses faith in the safety of the super market and decides it's better to drive off into nowhere, an odd aimless choice. Without an anchor for his hope, seeing his dead wife, and driving around for who knows how long through utter nothingness only to be confronted with an impossibly large creature shortly after running out of gas - well, his already flimsy faith ran out of gas too. His tank of hope hit empty. He witnessed enough people get mutilated and then eaten alive by the creatures of the mist that there was NO WAY he would let his son or the others meet such a fate too. He finally gave in to his long surging fear and despair.

This surrender NEEDED to coincide with the clearing of the mist. The two events were bound, in terms of the ebb and flow of the larger issues at play, and structurally it makes sense. Having TJ roam around for a few minutes is unnecessary and perhaps too realistic for such a fantastical film. More (and perhaps most) importantly, right after that pivotal moment, we are reunited with the woman from the beginning. In a slow tracking shot we see her, reunited with her kids, riding a military van and being transported to safety. TJ gave in to fear and despair and this led him to violence and tragedy. The woman who faced the uncertainty of the mist intent on finding and protecting her children ultimately found rescue and hope.
 
 
--
05:10 / 18.04.08
I thought the ending was hilarious, in a black humor/dark irony kind of way. Heck, I was laughing when I saw it. The film was heavy-handed as fuck and totally unsubtle but at least the monsters looked cool. Too bad the whole "gateway into another universe" thing was so underdeveloped.
 
  
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