Stephen King's The Mist (trailer link inside)

****. forgot about carrie and christine. please don't shoot me, i haven't seen The Dead Zone yet... i've been meaning too though. the shining is probably my favorite adaptation of stephen king.

darabont is 3 for 3 as far as king adaptations. shawshank, green mile, and the mist.
 
J.R. Hudson said:
SPOILERS



Hunter, you whiney bastid ! = )

The camera most definately stood out as as a bad idea; using The Shield crew to shoot those scenes. The fades were Carpenteresque to the max. I loved them.

I was really drawn into the moment when homeboy was 'screaming'. I mean, he just took out his kid, ya know ? Seems a plausible response.

My way to do it:

Killing everyone was ballsy by the filmmakers, not sure how someone saw it coming ? The allusion was there, but actually doing it was another thing alltogther.

I would have had those spider creatures crawling all over the car to where they had no choice but to pull the trigger, then, the Army would start rumbling in and they would scatter ...

I felt in simply pulling the trigger, while everyone was just chilling in the car in silence was premature.
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I agree at the premature-ness. SPOILERS
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There is NO FREAKIN way that dad would have shot his boy if there was ANY chance of saving him. There was plenty of chance still. This was totally unbelievable and completely not fitting with his character.


My Impression of how the direction and character played out:

"I must save my son. I will do anything to save my son. Don't give up! We can all make it! We can fight! Oh wait, we're out of gas. Obviously that means we are completely without hope (thick sarcasm). You know what...since we are out of gas and the director wants something shocking to get people talking and increase sales, lets throw all of our character arcs to the wind and I'll just kill my son and you other old people too! Oh...and you can't get your money back..."

:nads:
 
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I liked the ending. Been a LOOONG time since I saw an ending that bold before. Really I think the best way to end a horror film is to make it worst possible ending for the characters.


SPOILERSSS!!


Though now that you mentioned it...Maybe it would be more like the character if they had stayed inside the car for a while trying to think of a way out, and as they started to dehydrate and starve, the dad will realize nothing was going to save them and in order to keep his promise to his son, he'll kill him before the monsters eventually do. Better than to die from dehydration/starvation. I like the tension, the silence before he did it. Cause the audience (well I was) thinking: No! No don't do this! Not yet! This can't end like this!


I wouldn't rush it with more action.

Edit: Though now thinking about it, if it was done right...and done as if it looked like he was going to shoot the spiders then suddenly shoots everyone, so suddenly that no one sees it coming, and then just him waiting to die by the monsters just to be saved by the army...that's pretty damn good too...
 
Spoilers (The knowledge of which couldn't possibly make this movie any worse than it already is.)

I was really looking forward to this and wow, is this bad. Wow.

Hated the stilted cheesy dialogue which was apparent from the first line
Hated the ridiculous and illogical characters (especially the fanatic played by Marcia Gay Harden who irritated me to no end)
Hated the poor pacing
Hated the plasticky cgi
Hated the numerous fades to black
Hated the completely unmotivated camera work - the jerky zooms and searching focus were totally out of place
Hated the way too rapid conversion of the grocery store shoppers to psychopathic cultists
Hated the weepy choral music as the Land Rover drives past the grocery store

and I hated, hated HATED the stupid ending.

Oh bummer, we're out of gas? Well I guess we could wait until the monsters are swarming all over us before doing something drastic - naw, I'll off everybody right now. In less than 4 seconds. And then bleat about it in one of the weirdest portrayals of grief ever. And as a bonus, the tanks will roll by 2 seconds later? Get it? It's ironic!

Grrr....I'm kind of irritated at how bad this was. I expected so much more, but at the very least a decent movie, which this was not.
 
i have mixed emotions on this film. it was entertaining at times, but also maddeningly frustrating.

*SPOILERS*

my biggest problem is that many of the people made completely unrealistic decisions.

--the psycho zealot is able to convert almost the entire store after only a couple of days?
--the neighbor still thinks it's a joke despite numerous people telling him otherwise. didn't he hear the screams of a man dying just hours earlier? didn't he feel the store shake as the mist came over?
--why are they just standing around the pharmacy after getting the meds? anyone ever think of running?
--the father is willing to risk his life to get antibiotics for a severely burned and obviously dying joe, but shoots his own son as soon as he runs out of gas. WTF?

i like films about a group of people surviving against the odds so that aspect was entertaining for me. it was just frustrating that the decisions people made were so ridiculous.
 
The only thing that worked for me was the religious zealot. They played it so well that you really wanted to get rid of her ASAP. Other than that, the ending was weak for me. I enjoyed 1408 so much more than the mist.
 
Hudson, I'm with you a hundred percent.
I read some of the pre-hate on this film and then I got to see it. SO, maybe I wasn't expecting anything. I thought it was great fun and got creeped out and grossed out and everything else. I didn't want it to end the way it did and it did anyway. Damn! Didn't really like the screaming. Mel Gibson gave one of the two best portrayals of grief I've ever seen in Ransom and Ewan McGregor at the end of Moulin Rouge. So, kinda hard to beat those two.
As for the rest of the film, I haven't enjoyed anything as much from Hollywood in a long time.
 
Solid Flick. Nothing new, but well done for the most part. Effects a little dodgy in places. I think less of the creatures would have been scarier. The Mist should have been like the ocean in Jaws, with monsters only popping out occasionally to snatch people. I think they got too explicit towards the end and it ruined the mystery. As mentioned, the scariest part of the film by far was the religious zealot.
 
I agree Batutta

The first creature (the tentacles) were not convincing at all and gave away too much too soon. The JAWS approach would have worked very well.

(The ending still pisses me off)
 
I enjoyed this movie. The only problem I had with it is that every single one of Steven King's horror stories is exactly the same. There's monsters. And then there's this religious element opposing it that's never quite thought out.

But I thought the movie was really cool. I tend to like anything where people are stuck in one area. It always creates the best conflict.

Once the monsters started getting really big, I was so into it. The ending didn't bother me too much. It was a brave ending, but probably would've resonated more had the tanks never showed.
 
Liked it a lot. Some situations didn't feel very well motivated.

The ending was good, but the whole army showing up in its epic glory just after the protagonists felt the ultimate desperation? Not very realistic.

Maybe just a few soldiers, revealing that an end to this was actually coming.

And the lead male actor wasn't all that good, I'm afraid.

Anyway, just my 2 (euro)cents.

Pretty good movie.
 
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