I read The Mist once in 1990, and I have always thought it was a brilliant story, and would have loved to see it made into a good film. It's a great story, both as a scary science fiction / horror and as a thoughtful piece about human behaviour in extreme circumstances. I was quite excited to read that the story was being filmed, and even more so when the reviews came back very positive, although there was talk of a "shocking ending" which was obviously different to the novella's ambiguous one.
So, tonight (in celebration of the end of the semester) I brought the DVD home for some serious veging. I was impressed - it's a really faithful, and really good adaption of the novel. Every aspect of it - the claustrophobic nature of the situation, the disintegration of civilization in the face of a mysterious, apocalyptic event - was done perfectly. And then we get to the ending.
There are a couple of things wrong with the ending. It has been praised for being not a typical Hollywood ending, which is kinda stupid considering that Stephen King rarely writes Hollywood endings. While the novella's ending is ambiguous, the film's new ending is very bleak, which I am OK with, after all the movie is basically about the end of the world. I would have vomited blood it it was the kind of schmaltz that Spielberg wrecked War of the Worlds with. What annoyed me about that aspect of it is that it's a cheap cliche in horror movies. Oh, what a relief, the hero has made it to the end of the movie. Rooaar! The monster's little brother is hiding in the back seat and leaps at him. Roll credits. IT'S A CLICHE.
Why I hate the ending Part Deux (contains a big spoiler for the movie here). After the bleak ending, the mist is clearing, and the good old US army are restoring order and the American way of life. OMG, it was all for nought. They should have stayed in the supermarket all along, it wasn't really the end of the world. Bet you feel a bit silly now! There are two aspects of this I hate: that the whole premise of the movie is diminished is EXTREMELY DISAPPOINTING. The second, huge, gag inducing one is that it STINKS, like a bloated maggotty dead water buffalo in a manure pit on a hot day, of being some post-September 11 American military propaganda exercise. Don't you worry about the end of the world, my fellow Americans. The military will save you. What seems like a tactless piece of propaganda diminishes the whole film. My advice is to press the stop button on the DVD just after they see the really big monster towards the end of the film. Then you will have seen the best of it which is pretty close to Stephen King's original story.
So, tonight (in celebration of the end of the semester) I brought the DVD home for some serious veging. I was impressed - it's a really faithful, and really good adaption of the novel. Every aspect of it - the claustrophobic nature of the situation, the disintegration of civilization in the face of a mysterious, apocalyptic event - was done perfectly. And then we get to the ending.
There are a couple of things wrong with the ending. It has been praised for being not a typical Hollywood ending, which is kinda stupid considering that Stephen King rarely writes Hollywood endings. While the novella's ending is ambiguous, the film's new ending is very bleak, which I am OK with, after all the movie is basically about the end of the world. I would have vomited blood it it was the kind of schmaltz that Spielberg wrecked War of the Worlds with. What annoyed me about that aspect of it is that it's a cheap cliche in horror movies. Oh, what a relief, the hero has made it to the end of the movie. Rooaar! The monster's little brother is hiding in the back seat and leaps at him. Roll credits. IT'S A CLICHE.
Why I hate the ending Part Deux (contains a big spoiler for the movie here). After the bleak ending, the mist is clearing, and the good old US army are restoring order and the American way of life. OMG, it was all for nought. They should have stayed in the supermarket all along, it wasn't really the end of the world. Bet you feel a bit silly now! There are two aspects of this I hate: that the whole premise of the movie is diminished is EXTREMELY DISAPPOINTING. The second, huge, gag inducing one is that it STINKS, like a bloated maggotty dead water buffalo in a manure pit on a hot day, of being some post-September 11 American military propaganda exercise. Don't you worry about the end of the world, my fellow Americans. The military will save you. What seems like a tactless piece of propaganda diminishes the whole film. My advice is to press the stop button on the DVD just after they see the really big monster towards the end of the film. Then you will have seen the best of it which is pretty close to Stephen King's original story.
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