Frank Darabont's The Mist *SPOILERS*

[LitmusDragon]

The ending was better than the cornball one we got in I Am Legend, but not as good as the end of The Descent.

I'm not sure why I'm comparing these three films. Maybe because they are all pseudo-scientific horror.

 

[Agenda]

I didn't like the ending, either. What really ruined it, imo, wasn't so much the 'not finding fuel thing' - although that did bother me as well. Rather, it was the fact that the army arrives just after he does the deed. Yes, it's only a movie. Yes, there are coincidences in movies. But this one just felt too damn contrived.

And I also hated how the woman who wanted to go back to her children survived at the end, as if to say 'See? You should have helped her' or something. Any reasonable person would not have helped her.

 

[Gaith]

It's like having--even though I haven't seen the film, but I know of the actual woman--Erin Brockovich be so determined for most of the film...and suddenly, towards the end, give up with no reason.
...
We can look at another character: Rocky Balboa. He goes through majority of the film (the first) determined to get his shot, but at the very last minute he gives up...We're not told why...he just gives up...

Which part of "people living in the middle of extremely traumatic circumstances sometimes make sudden and rash decisions" would you like help understanding?

 

[Hugo Rune]

Solid Film. A touch preachy, and one-sided, but how many feature motion pictures are released these days where most of it takes place on one set? I like that. And the ending.

Though its works better in the intended Black & White.


Hugo - Welcome to Sesame Street, kids. Today's word is 'expiation'.

 

[Joel_Kirk]

Don't get me wrong, I was disapointed, but then I thought to myself, I would do the same thing and that's why it's a good ending because it made me reconsider my will to live.Besides, with Stephen King I sort of expect a wiered ending.If "It" would have ended that way, I would have Bern pissed. I guess it depends on the circumstance .

I need to see 'It'....(the fillm 'It' that is)...

Something about that clown....

The ending was better than the cornball one we got in I Am Legend, but not as good as the end of The Descent.

I'm not sure why I'm comparing these three films. Maybe because they are all pseudo-scientific horror.

I still haven't seen I Am Legend; the ending is probably the reason.

I didn't like the ending, either. What really ruined it, imo, wasn't so much the 'not finding fuel thing' - although that did bother me as well. Rather, it was the fact that the army arrives just after he does the deed. Yes, it's only a movie. Yes, there are coincidences in movies. But this one just felt too damn contrived.

And I also hated how the woman who wanted to go back to her children survived at the end, as if to say 'See? You should have helped her' or something. Any reasonable person would not have helped her.

She did survive?

Oooo, I don't want to have to watch it again.

That's interesting, though....

And it brings up the point of whether or not her character was 'pure hearted;' a reason her character survived...

It's like having--even though I haven't seen the film, but I know of the actual woman--Erin Brockovich be so determined for most of the film...and suddenly, towards the end, give up with no reason.
...
We can look at another character: Rocky Balboa. He goes through majority of the film (the first) determined to get his shot, but at the very last minute he gives up...We're not told why...he just gives up...

Which part of "people living in the middle of extremely traumatic circumstances sometimes make sudden and rash decisions" would you like help understanding?

True, true....but we've had that same story before, and there was always one or two characters who remained 'sane'....i.e The Twilight Zone episode, 'The Monsters are due on Maple Street'...'Night of the Living Dead'...etc....

And even Night of the Living Dead had everyone die, but we accepted it because of the storytelling.

In 'The Mist' we don't know if they are hallucinating; we do hear some dialogue from the military characters, but we don't know if what they say is true or not...and we don't hear anything about the 'portal' until The Mist covers the area...

And if it was 'real,' was it only affecting the mean-hearted individuals?

There is no explanation; and again, as I'm expecting this explanation, the characters give up....and die....

 

[Temis the Vorta]

I HATED the ending. It was a freaking IDIOT plot ending. How MANY abandoned cars with tanks FULL of gas did they drive past? How many abandoned GAS stations? These people were NOT stupid and they did NOT wish to die. Yes, I can accept that in a moment of crisis after so much trial that they might have lost hope. But it is unacceptable to me that these characters simply IGNORED the gas needle creeping toward "empty" as they drove mile after mile after MILE along major highway and doubtless through towns and cities (conveniently NOT shown) to run their tanks dry in a godforsaken remote location with no hope of finding fuel. It was stupid and purposefully not shown because in the minds of most audience's what you don't see on screen doesn't matter and makes no difference. It bugs me that there was NO WAY these characters could get where they went without passing probably THOUSANDS of opportunities for fuel, yet they didn't bother.

Then, the gimmick ending which was telegraphed a hundred miles away annoyed me to no end. I much preferred King's original ambiguous yet HOPEFUL ending.

They were afraid to leave the car, even for a few minutes, after what they saw in previous few days. I think they lost the last bits of hope when they saw that giant animal crossing their path.

I loved this film and the ending.

Exactly. You can't apply rigid logic to it. You have to consider the devastating impact of what they'd experienced on their morale and will to live.

The tragic thing is...that gigantic animal that destroyed their will to live probably would pay no more attention to them than my cats pay to ants (about the same size scale). The giant animal was more likely a predator on all the horrific huge creatures they'd already seen. Just knowing that - that they were effectively ants in this new ecosystem - is the thing that really destroyed their morale. It's the shock of realizing that human are not always destined to be the pinnacle of evolution. Not even close.

I don't mind a 'sad' ending, but it was abrupt....

Death is abrupt. The ending was honest in that way.

And I also hated how the woman who wanted to go back to her children survived at the end, as if to say 'See? You should have helped her' or something. Any reasonable person would not have helped her.

I loved that! The world is FUCKED! You can think you did the right thing but it turns out to be FUCKED! It's honest, don't you see that? Finally a movie doesn't feed us the usual Disney bullshit. Do the right thing and everything will be okay. When does that actually happen in real life? Only by random accident. Just as likely, you do the right thing, and the result it totally FUCKED!

And it brings up the point of whether or not her character was 'pure hearted;' a reason her character survived...

"Pure hearted?" what Disney bullshit is this! People don't survive by being "pure hearted." They survive by 1) being more viciously ruthless than the other guy and 2) random accident. And really more 2) than 1). Any delusion you've had that you're in control of your life is just a fantasy you tell yourself in order to keep going. When you finally accept the truth, the ending of this movie is what happens. You people are afraid to recognize the fundamental truth at the heart of it, which is why you say it's a "bad" ending. What it is is an unusually truthful ending for a Hollywood flick.

 

[DarylCarpenter]

The funniest movie of 2007.

The final scene should have been Thomas Jane being driven away in a Whaaaaaaambulance.

 

[Agony_Boothb]

I LOVE this movie. Perfect ending.

 

[Dorian Thompson]

Yes, I dare say it was perfect. These people had barely slept for days. Sleep deprivation FUCKS. WITH. YOU. I still remember the bronchitis I had around New Years 2008 through most of January. It's 2 years later and I remember. I went for four days with--literally--about one hour of sleep total and I was a sobbing, raving lunatic asking my then husband to take me to the hospital, that maybe they could give me drugs from the psych ward to knock me out but wait....would I choke to death on the mucus in my system? My mind was a convoluted mess. I was telling my husband what funeral arrangements to make. I was so brutally exhausted from illness and lack of sleep that my rational thought processes were completely gone. Can I believe that a group of people who've experienced the death of their loved ones, who've been trapped in a supermarket for days with little sleep and seen people getting torn apart and eaten would make the decision they made to end it all rather than get eaten....or watch a son get eaten or starve? You'd better believe it.

 

[Brikar99]

She did survive?

Oooo, I don't want to have to watch it again.

That's interesting, though....

And it brings up the point of whether or not her character was 'pure hearted;' a reason her character survived...

I believe we get a glimpse of her in the back of a transport truck that's driving by with other refugees.

 

[Joel_Kirk]

The tragic thing is...that gigantic animal that destroyed their will to live probably would pay no more attention to them than my cats pay to ants (about the same size scale). The giant animal was more likely a predator on all the horrific huge creatures they'd already seen. Just knowing that - that they were effectively ants in this new ecosystem - is the thing that really destroyed their morale. It's the shock of realizing that human are not always destined to be the pinnacle of evolution. Not even close.

Death is abrupt. The ending was honest in that way.

Let me correct you on that.

The characters had a choice on whether or they wanted to die.....it was the movie itself that ended abruptly...

True, their morale obviously was hit, but looking at them....they didn't seem as different than the people they had left at the market.

I loved that! The world is FUCKED! You can think you did the right thing but it turns out to be FUCKED! It's honest, don't you see that? Finally a movie doesn't feed us the usual Disney bullshit. Do the right thing and everything will be okay. When does that actually happen in real life? Only by random accident. Just as likely, you do the right thing, and the result it totally FUCKED!

And it brings up the point of whether or not her character was 'pure hearted;' a reason her character survived...

"Pure hearted?" what Disney bullshit is this! People don't survive by being "pure hearted." They survive by 1) being more viciously ruthless than the other guy and 2) random accident. And really more 2) than 1). Any delusion you've had that you're in control of your life is just a fantasy you tell yourself in order to keep going. When you finally accept the truth, the ending of this movie is what happens. You people are afraid to recognize the fundamental truth at the heart of it, which is why you say it's a "bad" ending. What it is is an unusually truthful ending for a Hollywood flick.

Oh, it's not Disney bullshit, I assure you...

Again, comparing 'The Mist' to 'Night of the Living Dead' where all the characters die by whatever means...we somewhat accept that because everything is so random.

We don't get an explanation on where the zombie infestation came from, but we get ideas in television clips; and we kind of accept what happens in the end because we know the characters...and we have someone to root for.

'Dawn of the Dead' originally had the surviving characters die, but was changed to where their fate is left open as they leave the mall in a helicopter....(I'm referring to the superior original, not the Snyder version...)

And the world was looked at as fucked too; actually, no one knew whether or not the zombie infestation was regulated to one area, or the entire world.

In the course of the film, DOTD (Dawn of the Dead) characters we've grown to like--and think are going to survive--die...

On the other hand, after 'The Mist'....there is no explanation, nothing on what or where that mist came from. Are these people crazy? Are they hallucinating? Is this a dream? What?

If we were to compare to Night of the Living Dead, let's say the main character woke up from his dream of zombie infestation, found people lying outside his home dead with gunshot wounds, no living soul in sight...then, for no reason, he decides to commit suicide as well.

Sudden end of movie.

We don't know if there was a zombie infestation, if it was part of his dream, or what? We have no context of anything, actually....(That is the way I felt about The Mist).

Furthermore, going back to 'The Mist,' you have no one to root for. If everyone is going to die, killing themselves, slaughtering people--talking about the cast as a whole--showing they don't care....why should I, as a viewer, care?

Like you mentioned, we have a world that is fucked, characters we don't give a fuck about....Okaaay...

Why am I investing time--a little over 2 hours--in this film....?

Why should I give a fuck?

***

Silent Hill is another example: We don't get any explanation at the end of the film of what is happening, only a shot of a bush....(Of course, Silent Hill had huge plot holes anyway; it didn't even explain why Pyramid Head was there....he just was).

I used to give it a pass because of Rahda Mitchell and her outfit, and Laurie Holden and her outfit...but....

And Laurie Holden was in two movies involving mists, and dies in both....!

She did survive?

Oooo, I don't want to have to watch it again.

That's interesting, though....

And it brings up the point of whether or not her character was 'pure hearted;' a reason her character survived...

I believe we get a glimpse of her in the back of a transport truck that's driving by with other refugees.

Interesting....

 

[Kaijima]

The real problem with the ending, as someone said upthread, is that it ends too abruptly and with the army showing up RIGHT THEN. Here's the gag folks - the goddamn LINE OF TANKS was trundling along /right behind their truck/? That's not horror, that's comedy and cruel, sadistic irony.

And that's the problem. It cheapens the shock of what just happened to have a cartoonish "gotcha!" 30 seconds after the deed is done.

When he got out of the car after shooting everyone, for a moment, I had a gut instinct on what was about to happen. This is the scenario that popped into my head instantly:

He's screaming at the monsters to "come on!" and finish it. But they're not coming. I was /certain/ that the real twist of the film would be that he would not be killed and wander in the mist, wondering why he's not being taken. I expected the film would go on another 10 minutes or so, until finally, he comes to some kind of clearing in the mist and walks out, either finding the army or just by himself, and is forced to contemplate the real horror of the situation: how none of it was personal. The monsters weren't evil, they were just animals from an alien dimension. He wasn't killed due to blind chance and the worst part - he couldn't say he did the wrong thing by shooting the others. That's just the point - the universe is random. He is left alone as the survivor not because there's a lesson to be learned or a message for him but... just because.

So when the tank rocks up as soon as he steps outside, my jaw dropped. Literally. I said "you have to be shitting me" under my breath. So cheap, so stupid, so caving in at the last moment to create a cheap, cruel twist ending.

It's proof that great films can be soured by the final scene.

 

[Gaith]

Yes, I dare say it was perfect. These people had barely slept for days. Sleep deprivation FUCKS. WITH. YOU. I still remember the bronchitis I had around New Years 2008 through most of January. It's 2 years later and I remember. I went for four days with--literally--about one hour of sleep total and I was a sobbing, raving lunatic asking my then husband to take me to the hospital, that maybe they could give me drugs from the psych ward to knock me out but wait....would I choke to death on the mucus in my system? My mind was a convoluted mess. I was telling my husband what funeral arrangements to make. I was so brutally exhausted from illness and lack of sleep that my rational thought processes were completely gone. Can I believe that a group of people who've experienced the death of their loved ones, who've been trapped in a supermarket for days with little sleep and seen people getting torn apart and eaten would make the decision they made to end it all rather than get eaten....or watch a son get eaten or starve? You'd better believe it.

That is heavy - and indeed seems to prove the point.

 

[Dorian Thompson]

Well, I didn't mean to sound quite so dire, but I really did "lose it" after 4 days of sleep deprivation, and that was just bronchitis that had my chest and back aching to the point I couldn't bear to be touched. I hadn't experienced death and trauma on top of that. You can't think when you're that sleep deprived. You really cannot be rational.

 

[AstroSmurf]

^ I agree. One of the things this filmed touched on was the stress of the situation and how it altered the once rational people trapped in that grocery store. Without any hope of escape, rescue or information from the outside, they all slowly turned into desperate animals. We don't really know HOW we will cope until we are placed in those circumstances. Do any of us know how we would respond to being constantly hunted/haunted by the constant threat of being eaten by something we can't see or understand?

As for the ending, I loved it. It was dramatic and hit you like a steam engine. It left me raw for days and really made me think about the gravity of my own choices. One woman made the choice to leave the store and risk her life to save her children. She survived. The other characters chose to play it safe and ended up destroying each other or themselves.

And for all those horror buffs out there, you MUST see this film in black and white. It turns a blood and guts movie into a tight psychological thriller.

 

[sojourner]

King did admit he preferred Darabont's ending over his own.

 

[sithlord]

I saw it in the theater opening weekend and that ending hit me HARD. Tears flowed from my eyes, tears of saddness and terror at what I just witnessed. It's a brutal ending, but it's a truthful ending to the situation. It is a punch to the gut; it is challenging. But, I like my movies to be challenging. Yours and other's mileage may vary.

 

[Immolatus]

the movis came out in 2007 and were still talking about it

 

[Gaith]

As opposed to that swords-in-space movie with the talking dog that came out in 1977, and which is never discussed? :-P

 

[sojourner]

^Starcrash?