The Mist: A Really Disgusted Review

[thessalian]

I will start by saying the following: I thought that Frank Darabont's cinematic adaptation of Stephen King's The Mist was good. The ending ... I have problems with the ending.

The story in and of itself is a look at the human condition under extreme duress. Stephen King is good at those, just in general. When normal rules have been suspended and there's something terrifying and inexplicable threatening life and limb, what do people do? They form tribes, for a start. The cadre of Old Testament cultists that builds throughout the course of the tale shows why religion got started in the first place, back in the days when we were living in caves and questing for fire - it explains the inexplicable and gives some way of potentially changing the outcome. If gods are responsible for the weather, the hunts and the predators, perhaps appealing to them by any means necessary, with sacrifice and supplication, they might show favour or at least mercy. It's a way of pretending control of the quintessentially uncontrollable, which can be a comfort in trying times. Unfortunately, the more desperate the situation, the more self-serving, judgemental and violent the means of appealing to the gods: if someone is doing something that might anger the gods, kill them so they won't do it anymore, just to be on the safe side.

There's also something to be said for the 'average person' standing up and doing some pretty amazing things. Props to Toby Jones and Frances Sturnhagen - Ollie Weeks and Irene Reppler were a couple of my favourite characters in the novella, and the actors more than did them justice. Though I don't see how the bug spray flamethrower was necessary. I liked Mrs Reppler when she was facing down the spiders with nothing more than a couple of cans of Raid. But then, fire's more 'visual'. *shrug*

So ... the ending. Look, I know it was supposed to be a dark and horrible movie, but not only was the movie ending unnecessarily dark and horrible, but it also didn't make any sense to me. I mean, did David Drayton and the others go entirely insane, that they didn't notice driving five feet or so from army types with flamethrowers? I know the visibility is poor in misty conditions but not that poor, and sound still carries, so the tanks would hardly be a surprise. And why didn't the army types, on seeing a heavily lighted truck drive through their slash and burn operation, approach the vehicle when it stopped and see if the people inside needed help? What was the point?

In short, I think it was a horribly manipulative twist, that ending. It was deliberately thrown in (rather haphazardly, in my opinion) to give it the most horrifying impact and closure possible, rather than leaving it at an open-ended 'maybe' like the novella did. Because apparently, leaving it open-ended is far, far worse than killing or driving insane every sympathetic character in the entire film by the end.

Seriously ... go read the novella. I will have to do that sooner rather than later, on the grounds of washing the taste of that exploitative crap out of my brain. It's a pity, because I really liked the movie, beyond that one tacked-on tear-jerk-fest chunk of ending.

I meant to watch spooky movies for most of the evening on the grounds of ... well, Christmas Eve tradition, really. But I may have to pull out White Christmas a day early because gyeh.

Comments

[fearrett.livejournal.com]

I felt the ending needed to be in there, to drive home the fact that the horrible decisions we sometimes are forced to make can be /wrong/. Not always does the last minute sacrifice turn out peachy keen and full of rainbows and roses. Sometimes, shit just happens.

[thessalian.livejournal.com]

Under different circumstances, I wouldn't mind that ending. I just don't think that was the story for that ending, I suppose. Or if they were going to have that ending, they could have executed it a lot better, so that it at least made some sense. I mean, maybe having him run out looking for death and then come across the start of the army cordon a couple of minutes later rather than having already driven through it, which made no sense.