Wednesday, March 10, 2010

The Mist (movie review)



Title: The Mist (2007)

I am by no means a Stephen King fan, nor a horror movie fan. So it felt very odd in not only recording this movie, but also watching it. But I survived the movie. Unlike most of the characters.

And the characters were great. They were "real life" examples of a wide variety of people. When placed under dire circumstances, some people stand up to the pressure while others crack. In this case, we have a mysterious fog that descends from a secret military experiment. We do not see what is in the fog right away, but soon enough we see the blood and guts of the stereotypical horror movie. And the writhing tentacle of some mysterious monster to go along with it.

And with that amount of blood, there were several times I had to stop watching the movie and switch to something more light-hearted. Despite the bloody mess and scary beasts this movie had, I was continually brought back to the movie by the characters. They were great. Flawed most certainly, but easy to relate to on so many different levels.

Until the end. And this is where I was seriously depressed and pissed off. Not just because of the ending, but also because of the choice made by the main character. I know it was done in an effort to show the futility of life or something like that, but sheesh. No thanks. And that is why I do not enjoy King and his work. Something too depressing and scary about his stuff that makes it almost as bad as Elie Wiesel's Night.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

What a great resource!

Anonymous said...

came upon your blog. Got to say though, this is not how King ended the book. In the book they do not all die, instead all of them in the car survive. Don't bash King because the writer chose to redo the ending.

Neil Richard said...

I'm not surprised that the book is different than the movie, and that's something I should have thought of.

But despite that, I'm still not a King fan. Whether it's the books or the movie adaptations, they've just never set right with my tastes. but then again, I'm not a fan of horror.

His latest The Dome did sound interesting enough to consider buying, but after reading a few reviews that didn't give it high marks, I've put it on the back burner while I read books more in my preferred genre.

1979 semi-finalist said...

I've never read King, which is weird and something I should rectify. Now that I know from your commenter that the book ends differently than the film I'm curious and think I'll check out King's original tale.

As for the movie, good not great. I thought some really great stuff happened - the sad reality of people turning on each other in the store - and turning sheep willing to listen to anyone with a loud enough voice was particularly realistic and frightening I thought.

I'm mixed on the end. I thought it was pretty good for a horror movie (what's more horrible than that ending?) but I can understand why you don't love it.

Neil Richard said...

1979 - Yes, there were parts that I liked. That whole human dynamic of being trapped and having personalities come to the surface that may have been harmless in everyday life. And yes, the ending was horrible and very fitting for a horror movie. Thus my dislike since I'm no horror movie fan.

Pseudonymous said...

i like ur opinion