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.

I've just watched the ending again, and in the cold, hard light of day (and sobriety), I've gotta say, Thomas Jane's screaming is quite humorous. And in retrospect, it is kinda funny that the entire United States Army shows up seconds after he's just killed his own son.

In fact, it might just be the most unintentionally hilarious ending to any movie I've ever seen.

When considering his wildly overpraised previous work, Frank Darabont's The Mist is akin to a highly regarded chef being asked to make a cheeseburger and failing miserably. While still managing to stumble upon the occasional nugget of goodness, The Mist is an extremely cheap movie in nearly every aspect imaginable. The special effects are cheap, the camera work is awkward and cheap (whats with the random, jittery zooms?), and most erroneously the characterization is cheap. The biggest example of this is Marcia Gay Harden's character, Mrs. Carmody. An archetypical "crazy Christian" if there has ever been one, her character exists solely to get a rise out of the audience. There is a skillful way to implement something like this in a film, but Darabont is totally clueless. So determined to push a secular agenda across the screen, he botches what could have been an interesting character dynamic. It's not long before Mrs. Carmody is screaming for human sacrifices, and the audience is doubling over in laughter.

The opening moments of the film are strong, and the climax is appropriately grim and darkly hilarious (intentionally or not), but the meat of the film is bogged down by a ham fisted filmmaker who can't get a handle on his camera or his characters.

well ... i would consider it to be. i would tell my dad to protect me from the monsters no matter what because i've seen the monsters. at that age, if someone had also pointed a gun at me, i would have asked for the same protection again. David just used what he had to justify what he did and left it there. i believe it was the writer's goal to make it an irrational act to begin with. which is why it so clearly focuses on the child to begin with during that scene. Couple that with the idea that all 4 lost all hope so quick, mostly because thats as far as they had planned their ... plan out. the minute they were out of ideas, they never tried to make a stand. when it was time for THEM to give up, it was time for everyone to give up. David kept himself alive because in his mind, HE had sacrificed his own life by staying alive when for himself, the better alternative was death. But only to him.

The amount of discussion generated by The Mist's ending shows that it was the correct choice for Darabont.

BTW, I'm buying bABA's rationale for the ending - - nicely argued...

WOKJ is jusn't anywhere on the net. There's a higher grade of opinion here on movies that (at least) I respect...

I don't think either way of looking at the ending is wrong as it concerns people's specific morals. However, I feel like you're overemphasizing the son's role in that scene. If the camera focused on him more (and I don't remember him waking up looking terrified. Maybe he did open his eyes moments before but if he did and had a frightened look on his face that was the same expression the actor posessed throughout.) than the others, I think it was because the act was done to protect him especially. Of course in the end it wasn't the right decision, but I think the scene would be viewed as more powerful if one was convinced that at that time it made sense. It did to me, I would never want my son to be ripped to shreds and I thought their lack of hope was understandable and had already been kind of made clear when David said "It could be the whole world, it wouldn't make us any less dead." The escaping from the supermarket at that point was an act of desperation and due to the religious fanatics and growing amount of deceased, not because they were convinced the army was on it's way.

Parent's dictate what their kids can or can't do until they're legally adults in most countries. I see no reason why this shouldn't be the same when it comes to euthanasia-in-favour-of-being-eaten-by-a-giant-squid-crab-thing.

Exactly, however, when you've been driving for X amount of time finding nothing but the mist and dead people and you've finally ran out of gas still surrounded by mist and have a monstrous walk past your vehicle then I think the thought of waiting for help to arrive wouldn't even cross your mind at that point. The whole point of leaving the market was to escape the fanatics and hopefully find help which they did not.

yeah, but it's not like they could've stayed in there forever, nor did they know that help would be coming within the next year, let alone two minutes.

Mrs. Carmody doesn't scream for human sacrifices until two minutes before her death. Nice hyperbole, though.

Wow... I can't believe how much i loved this film. I absolutely hated The Fog and was not expecting much more from this. At first i got the feel of this being a B horro flick and got pretty worried. At first the monsters seemed stupid, but damn.... Once the whole social aspect of the film kicked in, i was hooked. I couldn't care less about if the monsters were real or not, but only on what the characters were going to do. But also, the monsters got incredibly creepy during the pharmacy scene. As for the ending, i loved it! I can't imagine bing in Jane's situation. Sure the acting overall was not top notch and silly at times, but that is what made it so great. Having the B horror movie feeling mixed with one hell of a mind blowing story was perfect! The Mist is not only the best horror film of last year, but also one of the best movies of 2007 hands down!
A/A+

B/B+


I really wanted to love this film. I'm a big King fan and also a fan of horror movies in general and especially of creature features. So this looked like the perfect film for me. After 1408 disappointed me a bit, I was definitely expecting The Mist to make up for that...but once again, there was disappointment amidst the good stuff.

Maybe my view of the film will improve on repeat viewings (I definitely plan on purchasing the flick once it's out on DVD). As of now, I think it's a good horror movie, but I really could have been something great with some tweaking. The worst thing that stood out to me was the amount of bad and mediocre acting. I mean, I like Thomas Jane and in some right roles, he can be quite charismatic. But here...he's just not very good. Not in all of the scenes, but overall, he's not. Especially the scene with him screaming at the end just seemed so acted and false that it just made me cringe. Several supporting actors weren't any better either with Thomas Jane's son being the main nuisance with his bad acting. Only Toby Jones as Ollie and of course Marcia Gay Hardenn as Mrs. Carmody delivered good performances, even though Harden was sometimes bordering on grave overacting and oversimplifying her character. I must say that there was applause at my screening as well when she was killed, though, so her portrayal certainly worked!

Normally, I wouldn't complain about mediocre acting in a horror film, but in this one it really bothered me. Maybe because the rest of the film seemed so serious and well-done and not just trashy. Another thing that bothered me a little is how fast the whole thing with Mrs. Carmody and her followers was resolved and that Thomas Jane and others could flee so easily at the end.

Other than that, this is certainly a good movie and a better King adaptation than 1408, even though not as much better as I hoped for. What the movie definitely accomplishes well is establishing the dreary mood of the whole situation. There's always a sense of fear and danger around during the film. When Thomas Jane and his group goes out to get the medicine, there's a whole lot of tension. It also gets another bonus points for very creative creature designs. Seriiously, some things in the mist were simply terrifying and very innovative, especially the bigger ones. I loved the shot of that huge thing walking past the car towards the end of the movie...

...speaking of the movie's ending, I also found it quite harsh, though obviously having read that it's shocking, the shock wasn't as big for me since I knew something would happen. It's still surprising that they actually went with this dark ending and I applaud the makers for that. In the end, there's far more positives than the negatives. There's a decent amount of blood 'n gore, tension and creativeness here. Too bad that the acting brought this film down a lot and took away from the realism in the feature.

It came, I saw, It was rather excellent.

The movie sure has it's flaws but I can't remember when I was the last time 2 hours on the edge of my seat. Extremely suspensful movie with great performances. I always cared about the characters. Thomas Jane was very solid to my surprise, though the screaming at the end was pretty weak. I'm a big fan of the ending and it would have been even better if the army wouldn't have been coming right after he shot them. Still, this is the most surprising and maybe even the best film I've seen 07. A

I saw this back and December and I must say that I was very impressed.

The Mist is that rare kind of horror film we hardly ever see anymore: One that tries to both scare and audience and give them characters worth rooting for. The film succeeds in both of these aspects, as the human horror is at times every bit as frightening as the horrible creatures lurking just outside the store. Thomas Jane is very impressive in the lead role, giving us a protagonist who is actually smart and likeable, something rarely seen in horror films these days. But the highlight is Marcia Gay Harden as Mrs. Carmody. Harden does ample scenery chewing, and gets really freaky as her character gets progressively more insane. When she finally goes batshit crazy, it's a terrifying thing to watch. There were numerous sequences that had me at the edge of my seat. Every encounter with the creatures was incredibly well handled. However, some of the human scenes eclipsed them in terms of intensity. And then of course, there's the ending, in which irony deals a harsh blow to the viewer.

In a time when so much of Hollywood's horror product seems to be of the torture porn variety, it's great to see that there are still firhgt flick like The Mist being turned out. It's an effective film that hooks viewers with an intriguing premise and keeps their eyes glued to the screen thanks to characters to care about and intensity to keep the audience on the edge of its seat. Even three months after seeing this, it still sticks out pretty vividly in my memory, which is more than I can say for any other horror film I've seen upon initial release.

Grade: A-

B

The ending made sense to me. Thomas Jane is just a bad actor and the music at the end was unnecessary.

This and 1408 saved the horror Genera of 2007

A-