Watching The Mist again...

One of my favorite monster movies of recent years! Very reminiscent of The Crawling Eye (a childhood favorite). I applaude the unHollywood ending!

Has everything, scary spidery things, flying bat things, scary religious fanatics!

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Updated On: 7/29/12 at 03:45 PM

Not just ballsy, but a shocking ending when you consider how Darabont's makeup up to that film was a very sentimental, old Hollywood kind of director even with his horror background.

Love it. I watch it at least once a year.

Agree that the scariest monster in the movie is Marcia.

The ending still floors me. It is ballsy, and I can't believe a Hollywood studio let him get away with it.

And how great is Andre Braugher?

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it's actually one of the most hollywood endings ever captured on film. completely ruined it.

Updated On: 7/29/12 at 11:44 PM

*shrug*

it's a very easy proposition to prove. the ending is extremely manipulative. had it ended simply with them all committing suicide, fair enough. BUT, it just turned out that he didn't have enough bullets to do himself in. ON TOP OF THAT help arrived. ON TOP OF THAT help was not even five minutes behind. ON TOP OF THAT the help just happens to have the lady he dissed in tow.

this is just as deus ex machina as if the sky erupted open to have the sun shine down, just in the opposite direction. it makes the ending extremely self-conscious, as if the director really has an axe to grind against the jane character. i swear i saw darabont's watch actually as his hand swept down and arranged the ending to be as Bad as Possible (tm).

It's only a Hollywood ending if your idea of Hollywood endings are Vertigo or Chinatown.

Him living does not a happy ending make.

He has to live with the fact that not only did shoot his little boy and everyone else in the car, but that had he waited 5 minutes more he wouldn't have had to.

I don't give that character 24 hours before he commits suicide himself from the overwhelming weight of grief and guilt.

And what raises it above a standard "Twilight Zone" ending is the fact that you really care about the guy. Which is the movie's greatest strength, that it's more concerned with the people inside than the FX monsters.

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I agree Taz, the true brilliance of that film is that you actually do care for the people in the grocery store. You find yourself drawn into the characters and their various ways of coping with the situation. Right down to the very first woman who leaves the store to get back to her kids, who pleads for someone to go with her. Each character I found myself mourning when their time came, specially the sacraficed service man who was thrown out to appease the creatures.
Mrs Carmody's character as well is so finely portrayed you actually believe her journey into religious delirium.
I didn't find the ending happy at all. the parting of the Mist and the signs that there will be a tomorrow seemed to me to be as brightly lit as a total eclipse of the sun. We were too focused on the horror and pain that this otherwise wonderful realization inflicted on the guy we cared about most, David Drayton. Even after watching this movie a half dozen times, I still feel like I have been hit in the gut as the end credits roll.

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Updated On: 7/30/12 at 10:32 AM