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"The Mist"--seminal novella by Stephen King, and one of his best works (it meets the Big Three: a good Beginning, Middle and Ending--yes, it actually has a good ending!)
Very excited for this one. Three-time Oscar-nominee Frank Darabont (“The Green Mile,” “The Shawshank Redemption”) wrote and directed this movie, and it's due out...
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:-/
Well, that's a detriment to living overseas. I guess it's already out in the US--has anyone seen it?
The trailer looks pretty good, especially I recognize some of the key elements to the original story...now if only they keep the ending where...
Saw it last night. It is amazingly faithful, bringing to life several 'touchstone' scenes that I mostly remembered reading 20 some odd years ago. IMO The set was spot on, exactly what I had in mind and the casting was super. I truly HATED Mrs Carmody. It seemed to be very real as to showing what would happen in a crazy situation (mob mentality), but that was captured in the original script ;)
Great choices on sound as well, no rock anthems and very minimal score. You are scared of the things happening on yer own, without audio clues. Really refreshing.
I was worried about how well it would translate to the big screen, but I think it worked well. It was very enjoyable.
Stupidest people on earth these characters in this movie. Stupid, stupid, stupid. I couldn't believe it. Now I'm one for human foibles and all. I hate stories where the characters are supercompetant and awesome and always to the right thing--but honest to goodness I was cheering for the monsters after a few minutes of this. These folks deserved to get ate. They freakin' deserved it! They were begging for it! Argh.
The below is for folks who have seen it, so I can vent. It's a pretty thorough recounting of retarded screwups.
Okay so here you are in the creepy mist. A guy went into the mist, like maybe a foot or two and then started to scream in agony, right? So are you going to go out to unplug the generator vent? If you do open the door and tenticles are out there--would it really take you ten minutes to notice the big FIREAXE on the wall?? Okay so you couldn't save the kid, because well the fireaxe is really hard to use right? So you only have this foot long chunk of tentacle. Now you have to sell everyone that there's really a giant tentacle monster out in the mist. Geez, that's really hard buddy. How about SHOWING THEM THE TENTACLE! Like right off the bat! Not himming and hawwing through some goofy embarrassed explaination. Then again, the people he's talking to are somehow even STUPIDER and think this must be a white guy trick! Blarg. So his neighbor decides to go die, and take a bunch of folks with him--cause well that's fun, and because as a lawyer he can't appreciate that there's anything real out there. It's all foggy after all, and all the blood in the garage was probably just cow blood. Righty-oh. They all die. Then that night, when the giant grasshopper things are attracted to the light, you turn on the big gigantic hallogen lights. Yeah, that's gonna' do it. Thanks guys. Then you keystone cop around a bunch lighting yourselves and the store on fire and beating things to death--y'know long long after they're really dead. Then the monsters go away, not so much because they're losing, but more because they sense a TPK from the dumb humans and the movie isn't over yet. The next day, the dumb tentacle monster apparently can't sense humans right through all the broken plate glass--or it's full from eating that one kid still. But now there's more or less two plans. One group wants to go nuts and worship a crazy lady and sacrifice people, and the rest want to run out into the mist, just like that last group who all got killed, but with no better plan--more or less relying on having the main character with them. So they finally get in the car and drive--y'know until they run out of gas. They don't stop to get more gas, because well, they're stupid. So the stupid guys kill themselves, which really seems like it would have been a smart move right from the start. Darwin thanks them all--well except for the main character who keeps on pulling that trigger, hoping for that phantom fifth bullet that wasn't in there. Blarg on a cracker those people were STUPID!
I was disappointed. It was a great novella by King, and although I read it years and years ago, there were a few parts that left their impression...
First of all, the relationships...
And then, there was the new ending. I was watching it with some co-workers -- and I have the habit of saying smart-alec things during the movie for laughs. Yes, Mystery Science Theater has ruined me! So I make a joke about the worst possible ending I could imagine -- and it happened! My co-workers thought I was just ruining the movie for them!
Plus, they showed the big bugs in the previews! The story was so much better, because you didn't know what the heck was out there. The fear of the unknown was the main selling part of the original story, in my opinion.
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I was disappointed. It was a great novella by King, and although I read it years and years ago, there were a few parts that left their impression...
First of all, the relationships...
** spoiler omitted **And then, there was the new ending. I was watching it with some co-workers -- and I have the habit of saying smart-alec things during the movie for laughs. Yes, Mystery Science Theater has ruined me! So I make a joke about the worst possible ending I could imagine -- and it happened! My co-workers thought I was just ruining the movie for them!
Plus, they showed the big bugs in the previews! The story was so much better, because you didn't know what the heck was out there. The fear of the unknown was the main selling part of the original story, in my opinion.
My favorite King short story/novella. The movie was faithful and well done up until the ending. My wife thought the ending invalidated the whole movie and never wants to see the flick again. I thought the ending was unecessarily mean-spirited and generally a downer (no catharsis). So when I buy it on DVD; I think I will always end my viewing of it after the scene of the monolithic beastie walking over the car like the story ends. Then fast forward to the credits.
On the DVD its in black and white! Darabont intended it to be in black and white originally, so I'm glad they released it that way.
Did anyone else catch the Dark Tower references?
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Finally saw this amazing film--on then ending: I LOVED it!! King's original novella is decidedly Lovecraftian, except for the hopeful ending. Darabont's new ending maintains the Lovecraft feel, and was even approved of by King, himself. If you look at the movie as an homage to HP, there's simply no other way it could have ended. Jaw-dropping good. Five stars.
... My wife thought the ending invalidated the whole movie and never wants to see the flick again.
And she isn't alone.
We could make a list of movies with endings that ruins the experience for people then never want to watch it again.
I thought the movie was okay. I loved the monsters, the best cthulu monsters I've ever seen on screen. (As opposed to those I've seen under my bed, I guess.)
Hyper-religeous lady was freaky, and I think she did a good job of being the seemingly always present Stephen King crazy lady.
I totally guessed the ending of the movie, but I stayed to see if maybe I'd be surprised. I wasn't.
But, yeah. Eventhough I enjoyed the movie, I'm not going to by the DVD, and I'll never sit through it again. I might watch it if it came on one night when I can't sleep anyways, but maybe not even then.
With the ending as conclusive as it was, compared to the open-endedness of the novella, I don't feel compelled to see it all again.
I'll find it interesting to compare how much it made in the theater and how well it sells on DVD.
I loved the film. I didn't see examples of contrived stupidity that seemed inorganic to each character's profile.
I'm not speaking for anyone here (as evidenced by this being almost a reposting of what I wrote on the WereCabbage board three weeks ago) but this film makes me think about how many people can't seem to tolerate film endings that make grimly unpopular choices.
Stephen Geller wrote in his book on screenwriting, and I'm in full agreement, that some of the best, most thought provoking films have endings where the hopes of the viewer are deliberately disappointed.
Planet of the Apes wasn't the feel good hit of 1968 but it's a marvel.
The original Invasion of the Body Snatchers in the 50's ended with the aliens winning. Market research said people wanted a happier ending and they pulled the film and rereleased it with a truck full o' pods turning over on the freeway... yay, aliens defeated. yaaaaaaaay.
The 1978 remake ended as the original, and was psychically crippling. (Prolly shouldn't have seen it as a child)
We always get the IT ALL WORKS OUT ending, and hey, for some people movie's are all about escapism. Back during the depression everyone went to see films about people so rich that they had madcap misunderstandings with their butlers... it made poor people feel better to at least see riches.
I thought The Mist was artistically brave because it let a horror film end with an actual horror. Ending a film with a 'wait! the bad guy's not really dead!' isn't scary. It's just cheap. This ending was genuinely upsetting at ironic. This ending felt like the end of one man's world.
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...With the ending as conclusive as it was, compared to the open-endedness of the novella...
Before I saw the film, I was so worried (in a geeky way) that the ending would be some goof-ball Hollywood it-was-all-just-a-dream-and-now-everything-is-cool-beans kind of standard ending. I don't like the Hostel movies because (I think) they have no redeeming qualities, including the rather daring fact that they almost completely dismiss the horror movie formula made famous by Scream. In Hostel, the redeemable characters are the first to die, and the morally corrupt character is the one who lives to the end--while this is probably more realistic, since the tough-guy who will leave his buddies behind (I don't have to be faster than the guy with the chainsaw, just faster than you), the more worldly-wise guy, the guy with streetsmarts, is the one who would live, and the naive, nervous, morally up-right character would probably be killed right away, simply because the Heavens rarely intervene, and the bad guys don't care how nice you are--nonetheless, I don't, ultimately, like that aspect in a horror movie; I want the standard formula.
A Lovecraftian film is completely different. I'll say your average film goer did not buy a ticket to The Mist with the idea of seeing a Lovecraftian story, so an unfavorable reaction to the ending is to be expected, especially by a parent, who will naturally transpose anything to do with kids against their own kid. But if you know the story is Lovecraftian, if you know what 'Lovecraftian' means, then you probably enjoyed the ending. But that's just my opinion.
I wonder if "Lovecraftian" has come to mean movies with weird monsters in them. Man, I hope not. I love cosmic horror, the idea that the very realities we rely on are somehow wrong--that in a very real way sanity and knowing the real truth are mutually exclusive. I really saw this movie as less like the mythos and more like the first Half-life video game. People called Cloverfield a mythos movie too and I'm just staggered. It's Godzilla.
That said, I don't mind a good monster movie. Monsters are cool, and their certainly aren't enough good monster movies.
I just fondly recall movies like the remake of Dawn of the Dead--characters that seem real without being forehead smacking buffoons.
Oh and I love dark endings. No complaints there. Dark and non-Hollywood is awesome.
A Lovecraftian film is completely different. I'll say your average film goer did not buy a ticket to The Mist with the idea of seeing a Lovecraftian story, so an unfavorable reaction to the ending is to be expected, especially by a parent, who will naturally transpose anything to do with kids against their own kid. But if you know the story is Lovecraftian, if you know what 'Lovecraftian' means, then you probably enjoyed the ending. But that's just my opinion.
But I don't think the ending is particularly 'Lovecraftian' at all, so maybe I am missing something there.
Most of the Lovecraft stories I can think of end fairly openly, maybe with a startling realization, or self-realization. But I don't think the ending of the movie is indicative of how Lovecraft wrote.
I think a Lovecraftian ending would be:
The ending frames would show the people in car afraid, looking expectantly to the guy with the gun. Then fade to black (or to Mist, in this movie, I guess) with the approaching sounds getting louder until they stop.
I always thought the Lovecraftian ending left the reader's imagination to fill in the worst (or best) details. Not knowing what happens is the psychological effect I think of when I think of Lovecraft.
And I would like to reiterate that I did like the movie. I'm sure I didn't "enjoy the ending" but I didn't hate it, either. It ended the way I suspected it would, anyways.
It's just that the ending didn't leave me wanting "more," as they say. It ended on a note that just makes me not want to watch it again.
But I do understand that there are many people out there that did in fact enjoy the ending and would watch it over and over again.
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But I don't think the ending is particularly 'Lovecraftian' at all, so maybe I am missing something there. Most of the Lovecraft stories I can think of end fairly openly, maybe with a startling realization, or self-realization. But I don't think the ending of the movie is indicative of how Lovecraft wrote. I think a Lovecraftian ending would be:
** spoiler omitted **
I always thought the Lovecraftian ending left the reader's imagination to fill in the worst (or best) details. Not knowing what happens is the psychological effect I think of when I think of Lovecraft.
Hmm. I can certainly agree with your ending, and it sounds very HP. King's original story ends with the patently flimsy glimmer of hope. Things were bad, but at least they were alive and would keep on keeping on, but the reader was left feeling pretty down, and asking himself, 'to what end? What's the point of keeping on in this insanity?' In King's story, he answers by saying it's simply all you can do. Its falsely open-ended approach is an effective way to end a story of its type, and why I personally find it to be one of his best, because it meets the Big Three. Darabont's ending is helpless, hopeless and an end-run to insanity; the very epitome of bleak, where the characters discover, in the end, that everything they did, all their struggles, were for naught, and they were driven to their desperate ends with 'hope' as a malignant tease, the very colossal, cyclopian creatures encountered at the end a direct message of anti-anthropocentric reality. By itself, this is very, very Lovecraft. Having everything suggest a return to normalcy simply completes the protagonist's spiral to insanity.
Lovecraft is often accused of being oblique in his descriptions and generally credited with leaving much up to the reader's imagination. Nonetheless, he often goes out of his way to describe the indescribable (a whole page of vague description goes toward describing the indescribable Cthulhu). While Lovecraft rarely went so far as to have a character commit suicide or mass murder 'on screen,' tales would often end with the general understanding that characters did so ('Rats in the Walls'), a 'found-letter' explaining that they did so ('The Transition of Juan Ramero'), and that they did so as the final result of a growing insanity ('Call of Cthulhu'), irreconcilable knowledge of the outre ('The Haunter of the Dark'), or a strange desperation to control their uncontrollable circumstances ('Dagon').
I loved the film...This ending felt like the end of one man's world.Awesome write-up, Jade.
Thank you kindly, Andrew.
One of my favorite King pieces, I thought the movie was very well done and a lot of fun. The ending was a good ending for the big screen - I just couldn't see the truck fading in to the mist with a voice on the radio as happens in the story. I also like it when horror movies don't have nice, clean, tidy, happy endings. That said, and this may be because I have a little one myself, I did find it disturbing.
As for whether it was lovecraftian or not, I would says it was certainly influenced by King's reading of HPL. Two realities crashing together, completely to man's detriment, with a profound psychological impact on the typical person? Strange flying creatures that reminded me of byakhee and tentacles writing out of the dark? Yeah, all good. Not to mention the large tentacled monstrosity at the end, next to which man is, literally, completely insignificant and not even worth noticing. Oh, and yeah, I'm pretty sure that Drayton ends up in a rubber room somewhere.
<snip>By itself, this is very, very Lovecraft. Having everything suggest a return to normalcy simply completes the protagonist's spiral to insanity.
<snip> While Lovecraft rarely went so far as to have a character commit suicide or mass murder 'on screen,' tales would often end with the general understanding that characters did so...
I now completely understand your previous statements, and I bow your most excellent reasoning. :)
Yes, you're right. Anyone who knows what Lovecraftian means probably did enjoy the ending. It is indeed in par with Lovecraft's writing, though I usually don't let my imagination fill in the visuals of the "off-screen" nastiness. (Good examples, by the way.)
I think I can now appreciate the ending of the movie, but I still prefer to leave ending with less visuals and more left to imagine. For another example, I didn't like the final scenes of Space Cowboys.
I would rather fondly imagine that Tommy Lee Jones' character was laying on the moon, somewhat triumphantly, finding peace by completing his life's greatest adventure.
But by showing a dead person laying on the moon seemed kinda morbid, and made me think that he actually died a horribly painful death, and left his family to mourn without being able to put his body to rest.
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I wonder if "Lovecraftian" has come to mean movies with weird monsters in them. Man, I hope not. I love cosmic horror, the idea that the very realities we rely on are somehow wrong--that in a very real way sanity and knowing the real truth are mutually exclusive. I really saw this movie as less like the mythos and more like the first Half-life video game. People called Cloverfield a mythos movie too and I'm just staggered. It's Godzilla.
That said, I don't mind a good monster movie. Monsters are cool, and their certainly aren't enough good monster movies.
I just fondly recall movies like the remake of Dawn of the Dead--characters that seem real without being forehead smacking buffoons.
Oh and I love dark endings. No complaints there. Dark and non-Hollywood is awesome.
I agree on all counts. Tentacles do not a Lovecraft story make. Tentacles and cyclopean goodness set a Lovecraftian tone, but you're right, it's cosmic horror, human insignificance, incomprehensible realities, et al. that define Lovecraft.
What did you think of the two 28 movies (28 Days Later; 28 Weeks Later)?
What did you think of the two 28 movies (28 Days Later; 28 Weeks Later)?
The latter film gripped me all the way through. It had me wondering where I'd hide... what I'd do. Nothing like a good unfolding apocalypse movie to get you to fret with along with the characters.
[threadjack]
Andrew,
I saw in your Alaska thread that you're stationed here in Korea. Where are you stationed at? I'm at Yongsan, in Seoul.
[/threadjack]
I think I can now appreciate the ending of the movie, but I still prefer to leave ending with less visuals and more left to imagine. For another example, I didn't like the final scenes of Space Cowboys.I would rather fondly imagine that Tommy Lee Jones' character was laying on the moon, somewhat triumphantly, finding peace by completing his life's greatest adventure.
But by showing a dead person laying on the moon seemed kinda morbid, and made me think that he actually died a horribly painful death, and left his family to mourn without being able to put his body to rest.
Go rent Sunshine as soon as possible. Seriously.
Loved Sunshine.
If you like the feel of science fiction films from 1968-1972: Silent Running, 2001, Solyaris... films that delve into the intimate haunt of space travel, Sunshine won't disappoint.
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[threadjack]
Andrew,I saw in your Alaska thread that you're stationed here in Korea. Where are you stationed at? I'm at Yongsan, in Seoul.
[/threadjack]
CRC. I'm the GTAC AFSCOORD. I'll be back in town Friday night (the 18th). My family lives at Yongsan, though they'll be staying here in AK until June-ish (due to my wife just having the new baby); anyway, when they get back to Korea, I'm down in Yongsan every weekend and 4-day. 'Newman' works beside me in the office, if you know him.
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Loved Sunshine.
If you like the feel of science fiction films from 1968-1972: Silent Running, 2001, Solyaris... films that delve into the intimate haunt of space travel, Sunshine won't disappoint.
Me, too! Well, I slightly didn't like the Fifth Crewmember scenario--too much like Event Horizon, and I felt like it was a direct appeal to the half of the audience that probably didn't appreciate the first 80% of the movie. Nonetheless, a great movie, overall; one of my favorites.
I should mention I am an unabashedly enthusiastic supporter of Solaris...the new version. I love it.
Loved Sunshine.
If you like the feel of science fiction films from 1968-1972: Silent Running, 2001, Solyaris... films that delve into the intimate haunt of space travel, Sunshine won't disappoint.
Me, too! Well, I slightly didn't like the Fifth Crewmember scenario--too much like Event Horizon, and I felt like it was a direct appeal to the half of the audience that probably didn't appreciate the first 80% of the movie. Nonetheless, a great movie, overall; one of my favorites.
I should mention I am an unabashedly enthusiastic supporter of Solaris...the new version. I love it.
I agree with you completely. Every point. I didn't mention that LCD element because I didn't want to make anyone think it was too big a deal. As you say, there was just so much else to recommend the film.
I own the new Solaris as well. Very much in the same vein.
What did you think of the two 28 movies (28 Days Later; 28 Weeks Later)?
Love 'em both. Have them in the place of honor with all my favorite movies in a little DVD stand above the entertainment center. Big fan of zombie movies. The 28 movies stand out as some of the really great ones. Awesome.