King’s Halloween: The Mist (2007)

Tonight: The Mist (2007)

 This movie is one I NEVER expected to be good. When I first heard about it, I immediately thought it was going to be terrible and a shitty rip off of John Carpenter’s The Fog.

Instead of the ghosts of a wronged leper colony, it was tentacle monsters. Nothing about this sounded good.

However, people kept saying how good it was. I largely took this as the brainwashed masses. I continued to ignore the movie.

I later read how the movie ended and how it was more depressing than the book. At the time I saw it as unnecessary and glad I didn’t watch it.

I don’t know if my tastes have changed or I became more accepting or what. I have read the book for this one. I enjoyed it, and for the most part the movie follows the book.

Immediately as the movie opens, I kind of forgive it. It starts with the main character, David, drawing a painting of the Roland Deschain from the Dark Tower and in the background a painting from John Carpenter’s The Thing.

So not only are they referencing the Tower, they are acknowledging the originator of the idea.

After that, it kind of gets ruined by the terrible acting done by David’s wife and child. Fortunately, the wife doesn’t appear past the first 5 minutes and the child spends most of the time not doing much.

A storm knocks out the trees and power in most of David’s hometown. David’s neighbor, Captain Holt, who also appeared in Salem’s Lot, goes to the local grocery store with David and his son. That’s when the Mist rolls in and people start dying.

One guy rushes in saying there is stuff in the Mist, then a bunch of people rush out, scream, and disappear.

David goes back to the loading dock to find a blanket when he hears loud noise grinding against the back door. When he tells a few of the guys, they call bullshit and decide to send the bag boy out to unclog the generator. Well, they open the back dock and tentacles come in and kill the bag boy.

The special effects at play here range from fantastic to absurdly cartoonish. However, they do remain very faithful to the book descriptions.

After a brief argument following the bag-boy’s gruesome death, the store patrons break into 3 camps. David’s group of people who are trying to survive the mist, Captain Holt’s people who deny there is anything in the Mist, and Mrs. Carmody’s people who believe this is God’s judgement and demand sacrifice. Miguel and Tulio disagree because the Stars are not in position.

Captain Holt finally has enough and his people leave and go back to the 99. And by that I mean they die. Seriously, Captain Holt in Salem’s Lot was the first to shout Vampire, but monsters in the mist is too far?

So now we have David’s group VS Mrs. Carmody. She gains more of a following when she correctly predicts that someone else will die after dozens of people have died already.

David’s group goes to the pharmacy next door to find medicine after several people were injured during an attack in the night. They instead find a horde of Spiders and Jim rightly freaks the F*** OUT!

After losing several of their number, most people are now willing to join the church of Headism.

It turns out that the military base nearby were experimenting with gateways to other realms of the Tower and picked the wrong door. Two of the Soldiers hung themselves. The third was too busy being helpful in building barricades and getting medicine. So they stabbed him and threw him out as sacrifice.

David’s group decides it is time to get out of dodge and plan an escape. However, Mrs. Carmody figures out their plan and decides she wants to sacrifice David’s son. However, Dr. Zola takes umbrage with this and ends up shooting Mrs. Carmody in a VERY satisfying ending. David’s group runs out to the car and only half the group dies!

Once in the car David drives off and in a change from the book actually makes it home. Only to find his wife has been strung up outside by the spiders so we get confirmation of her death, unlike the book where it is left uncertain. Pretty damn likely, but never known for sure.

After he runs out of gas, he spends about 5 minutes deciding to kill everyone else in the car after they all wordlessly agree and has no more bullets for himself. 2 minutes later, the Army shows up, dispelling the mist and hauling truckloads of rescued survivors, one of which is the mother that ran from the store earlier.

David just needlessly killed 4 people, including his son, minutes before rescue arrived.

People really need to stop one upping Stephen King on his depressing endings. It’s not good for people’s therapy bills.

Tomorrow: Well, I’m depressed. Can I get a movie that has some happiness at the end? Maybe a little . . .Redemption?