alas, that is where the trouble lies. King wrote the ending the way it was thinking it was simply the best and only good way to end the novel. So just because Darabont wanted to end it with more closure didn't mean he had to. He did it so that more than just the thinking crowd would appreciate the film. And frankly, while the ending has a bite to it, it's too sudden and unexplained [and i'm not asking for a full explanation of everything, but a lot of it interfered with what had happened earlier in the film] to work for me.

still, i enjoyed the movie. I don't think it's close to as great as 1408 was, but it's definitely above-average horror. I was just disappointed, is all.

If the mist can appear out of nowhere, I have no problem believing it can disappear. It's two sides of the same coin. Then again, I found 1408 to be the very definition of a mediocre studio horror film, so it's obvious we just have different taste.

I cannot believe this is not doing so well at the B.O, hopefully it will have strong legs.
The Mist is what i have been waiting for from a horror film these past few years, INTENSE!
Damn to hell, people complain about crappy horror films, like Saw, the grudge and other shit, yet they make good $$, but when something great like The Mist comes out it doesnt do that good, its a damn shame.
I love the film, i want Darabont to do every Stephen King Adaptation, he gets it right.

A

I will tell you why.

This could've been an excellent movie, if only Darabont didn't follow the novel *that* closely. Whole religious zealot bit (and that was almost half of movie) downs whole movie quite a bit.

And that ending, that wasn't dark, that was just lame as fuck. Cheap cheap cheap. Darabont, you used to be cool.

C

I was patient. I was also disappointed. I thought that while the message behind the ending was great, it was one of the weaker-handled aspects of the film. I thought the best scenes were the ones where it was just the people dealing with their problems in the store, especially when Harden's character got involved.

I had the ending blown for me by some classmates of mine today.

I'll be seeing this over the weekend.

don't worry, it has a lot more than the ending working in its favor. If it didn't, it would've been a very bad film.

Now that's a horror movie!!!

Yee-haw! What a chilling ride all the way down to hell (and not back).

This is my kinda scary - - real life scary. And the giant bugs were nothin' (just like Bug), ya know, just nature takin' it's course. Nope, the real monster in this movie was religion - yup - just like in real life. It is evil incarnate. Shown here in a very creepy light, or should I say, darkness.

Love the ending. Love it. Extra horrific kicker. No ridnin' into the sunset here. It's horror all the way, right up to and including the SFX over the end credits.

Bone chilling.

This is up there in my pantheon of really scary movies -- not simple jump scares, or pseu-demon manipulation -- this is right up there with Open Water. This kinda movie is so scary, that many people write it off as nonsense. Good thing too... 'cause who'd wanna live in that kinda universe? It's an easy lock for my '07 top ten list...

EXTRAORDINARY

I thought the last 10-15 minutes or so when they got in the car would've been much more effective with a less lazy choice of music. I've heard that same Arabian wailing song in multiple trailers and films and it really took me out of the film. Kinda made it feel like the film was trying too hard to be important. That aside, I was overall pretty damn impressed. Thomas Jane was subtle and strong, Toby Jones was very likable, and I thought just about the whole ensemble worked. Like everyone else has said, Mrs. Carmody is the most fun-to-hate character in a horror movie this side of Courtney Cox in Scream. Not sure I totally believed her character though - her sudden tonal shift in the bathroom didn't make much sense to me, even if she was a bitch. I liked the variety of monsters and especially the big fuckers towards the end, but there were a lot of times were I felt the concept of them was cooler than the execution. I liked how the pteradactyls were eating the bugs, but the logic of those creatures was pretty flimsy. I also wish we had seen the creature attached to the tentacles - wasn't it in the book? I remember seeing illustrations of it. Speaking of the tentacles, while the hooks on them were gnarly, I thought them ripping off the guy's flesh didn't work well. Everything in the pharmacy on the other hand was aces - the soldier falling down only to burst into thousands of spiders was .

Frank Darabont's talent really shone through at times, but I don't feel like this is the very best job he could've done. Maybe that has to due with way high expectations... I can't emphasize how much I hate the marketing goons at TWC for editing the great poster into a garbage NY Times ad with Jane and Laurie Holden looking at a bunch of Hazmat guys torching garbage. Even if it didn't mislead the reader and didn't look cheap it ruined the ending.

It's the massive creature they stop and watch as it crosses in front of them in the car. Remember how, shortly after the mist arrives, the store starts shaking? It's because the creature is walking past it.

Hmmm... Good call with the store shaking, but are you 100% (Judging by your confidence here I'm assuming you've read the novella) that those tentacles belonged to the lumbering gastropod? From what I remember that thing looked like it was 100 feet tall, and if those were tentacles and not spikes around it how would they be sliding under the door unless it was sitting next to the store? A creature that big, you'd figure people would see it from the front of the store as well, though I guess you could argue the mist made it impossible to see more than several feet ahead of them...

You're probably right, I just really like the concept of a land squid. I imagine the head looking exactly like the Deep Rising beastie.

I think those tentacles belong to beastie that took Ollie, not to that gigantic one they watch. And that quake at the start doesn't resemble the one from Giganto at all. We get continuous shake for some time, yet with Giganto there are clear, thump like sounds when he/she/it walks.

Good call about music at the end, MovieDude. Felt completly...*not belonging* to the movie.

As I mentioned in my review above, I'm a fan of the ending. However, I was surprised that the characters didn't strike out on foot, based on their earlier persistence. Since it was the reason they drove to the end of the gas tank, maybe that last couple miles they walked after that could have brought them to the edge of the mist. At least they would have died trying, which seemed to be their earlier philosophy.

Nonetheless, I love the ultra-bleakness of the ending, and ultimately bought it as a result of the character's despairing mindset.

I suppose that could have been a sequel: One Week In The Car, but it might even sell less tickets than The Mist...

I bought it in the end because sometimes people really do do illogical things in the face of despair - - plus it made it extra deliciously twilightzonesque...

While I also wasn't quite as enamoured as some people here about the ending, I think it made sense. David had promised his son he wouldn't let the monsters get him. While it may seem hasty to the viewer, after seeing many of your friends get killed in these incredibly gruesome ways and finding your wife's corpse (which to me looked too peaceful), you would want the most "humane" end for your son. At that point they had seen a monster that huge lumbering around, and that this mist contained monsters that immense was what really removed any last shred of hope they had. Any issues I had with the ending weren't because I didn't understand why commiting suicide in the quickest, relatively painless way didn't make sense to them.

Not to mention they heard something big in the distance, figuring it for a monster, even though it turned out to be the convoy.

Ending wasn't bad because he offed his son and friends, that was just...weird, and a bit nonsensical as it happened so soon...it was bad for revelation a minute later with the showing of army. That was just awful. And puzzling is how people here are calling that dark, or bleak. It was just a cheap cheap twist. A joke.

On the whole, terrific. Far better than the trailer made it look. As for the ending, made sense to me.

bwahahahaha

most hilarious ending ever

i guess he deserves it for offing his son. that was just uncalled for. wasn't his decision to make.

I'm sure I'll be opening a can of worms here, but I really think that's a stupid thing to say. As viewers knowing there was going to be a twist you can say that it was a stupid move, but I think a father has the right to prevent his child from dying in the awful ways depicted onscreen. He couldn't have killed the other three and tried to explain why to his son, and he wasn't going to doom them all to being ripped to shreds. Beyond that, he promised his son the monsters wouldn't get him. His decision will haunt him forever, but not more than if he had survived and watched his son be mutilated.

Thinking about it, I can't have seen it being any other way.

you're taking what i say as criticism to the movie, which it wasn't.

actually, i think you missed the point of that whole scene.

The tag line to the movie is fear makes people do things (i'm paraphrasing). the entire point of that scene was mimicking what happened before, which was in the store where everyone, once in fear decided to follow what they felt was right and think what was best for others. The only ones left rational enough were those who did not follow the nut

in the car, they essentially turned into the nutjob themselves. in fear, they realized that killing themselves was the best course of action and none of them even thought for one second to consider what it would be like to kill a kid they've been protecting all this time. they just made a decision for him. This is one of the key reasons why when the kid wakes up, he has a horrific look on his face. He cannot imagine what his dad is about to do but is obviously not enjoying the look of a barrel pointing down at him.

And the fact that he would have to explain to the kid why he had to kill 3 people would be another reason why in fear, the man was thinking more about himself and less about the child.

Yea .. he saved his son from the monsters but his justification was something that suited him, not the son which is why the film's point was maintained. people do irrational things in fear.

I hate all you wankers for forcing me to read the ending.........................a plague on you all!!

And a special plague on you bABA.............You know why

You're not wrong in that the scene was supposed to mirror the supermarket and the wrong decisions being made, that much is instantly clear to anyone who watched the film, and yes is sort of the point. However I think there's multiple ways one can interpret the scene. Viewing it without knowing the army pulls up seconds later, you can believe they turned into nutjobs, or that Thomas Jane was commiting euthanasia. Either way it was ultimately the wrong decision, but I think that Darabont meant for it to seem like the right one. You're really supposed to believe that the situation was hopeless and their deaths were imminent, only to realize that David's decision made him have no less blood on his hands than the relgious wackos in the market.

Either way, I can't believe you'd think that the act David commited was selfish. People do irrational things when they're scared, but this time we didn't know it was the wrong decision until afterwards.