The Mist

Saw the movie The Mist a few weeks back - I've been thinking about it since I saw it. Didn't know anything about it before I we watched it and don't really like Stephen King as an author. He has a few I do like, but I find him too out there.

Anywho...The Mist was typically fucked up by another Director - (not that I've read the book) - but it was as enthralling as watching paint dry in a situation where the potential for something good was there. A group of townsfolk stuck in a supermarket surrounded by a mist with monsters in it.

...and King's monsters are a fraction 'meh' till the end. It was kinda like a 50 chapter book with the first and last chapters being kinda good. Mostly it was about the dynamics of a group of strangers in extraordinary circumstances with some dominant personalities running the joint.

So I watched it a few weeks back and it stuck with me, that is why I'm writing this. In case I've convinced you to watch it, stop reading...lol but I doubt it.


SPOILERS BELOW

THE mist is a result of 'military' experiments in the area that open a worm hole to a parallel universe, or another world. Enter, the monsters. At the end some towns people are forced to leave the 'safety' of the supermarket before the inevitable happens. Plus, they out stayed their welcome. The social dynamics - with the religious hell and damnation leader - and a few other characters that need a bat to the head early on due to the FRUSTRATING nature of their personalities. The obviously token black guy being the most frustrating. The fucker wouldn't just get some basic shit through his head. That did my head in. Bad way to do the charater.

Knowledge, IMHO, gives people a false sense of security when it comes to survival. You come across a wild dog, or a snake, or whatever, and a certain amount of knowledge that you have about those animals and chances are you'll survive the encounter. Insert a foreign scary threat and you strip that security away and also the ability to rationalise the situation...or people panic. When they get outside and away it is made clear that things have changed. We are NOW ants in a new world with 100 foot high other-world animals with prehistoric ways of dealing with us. You are not made aware of the 'event horizon'. It just IS.

Then the decision time comes. The truck runs out of gas and five people are left in the middle of 'another planet' with nowhere to go. Leg it, or wait, or top yourself?.

The most frustrating was the potential for something really great, but it didn't seem to have the want to tackle it at depth and with substance. What a waste for something so thought provoking.

Anyway, hope that gets that stupid fucken movie out of my head.