Chad

WillieMLF

Watched this one a few nights ago, not realizing it was one of the theme night movies. I would really love to see the BW version, but my DVD only had the color. Love this movie with the rising tension in the grocery store.

TheBigDave

Vudu has the Black & White version. It's labeled as the Director's Cut.

http://www.vudu.com/movies/#!content/360776

I'm not sure which one I'm going to watch. I prefer the B&W version, but I just saw it a few weeks ago. Haven't seen the color version in a while, so I might watch that one.

Dick Laurent

I haven't watched the B&W version yet, so looking forward to that tomorrow.

Undeadcow

Setting much of the plot as a debate among villagers in a grocery store is brilliant staging. Mist makes for an atmospheric creepiness.

I watched the black and white version for the first time since it's the director's preferred version; maybe the CGI tentacles/bugs/whatever look less iffy without color.

Some of the tension seems odd - for example, clash between religious extremists and rational thinkers seems like a cliche for Stephen King (at least based on The Stand, Carrie, etc) but I think it's rare to see people as extreme as portrayed in some of his material (like the woman here) so that feels a little forced. As things go on the extremism just gets more eye rollingly stupid and blunts some of the movie.

The pharmacy scene is top notch; maybe a little too similar to Aliens but great imagery. Turn the color setting on your television all the way down to create your own black and white "director's cut."

PhantomStranger

I think The Mist has become a little overrated in some circles. I cringe when I see people naming it as one of the best horror movies of all time. It does have that brutal ending going for it.

Undeadcow

The ending is one of the stupidest movie breaking ones I've ever seen - it's bleak, which is great, but the rational for suicide/murder is really thin... there's no immediate threat, they've shown the creatures harvesting corpses (so seemingly death alone is no salvation), and it feels out of character for the hero who has gone full throttle to survive until he just abruptly decides otherwise (there's no obvious duress or change in his composition leading to the final scene). Earlier the soldiers hang themselves, and no one hints at that being a viable way out until it just fits this inconsistent 'screw with the viewer' ending that suggests the writer was out of ideas on how to otherwise end things. I 'love' how the old guy approves of his random death but just shrugging. The 'oops... we are short 1 bullet' so as to justify "ironic" survival of 1 person is so random followed by the dues ex machina end it's an insult to anything else of merit in the film. Kudos to The Mist for pulling no punches, but boo for doing it in such a random way.

Apparently the book has a more open ended close, which I think would work better.

Trevor

I kind of see your point, but still love the ending. They could have shown a bit more bleakness or nearby creatures to help justify the suicide thing though.

Think I prefer B&W too.

Mondo Kane

Man, those last 15 minutes were a perfect fit in B&W. It was also cool to see a lot of recognizable faces that I didn't know the first time I saw this years ago. And as Undeadcow pointed out, the B&W certainly does a better job of covering up the spotty CG.

I now really wonder how many other horror/sci-fi movies could have benefited from that in recent years.

orlmac

This is a rewatch for me also so I noticed Andrea (Laurie Holden) and Carol (Melissa McBride) from the Walking Dead this time. Throw in Thomas Jane, Marcia Gay Harde, Andre Braugher, Toby Jones, William Sadler and others and you have a nice little ensemble cast here. I probably enjoyed it more this time even though I was greatly annoyed by Marcia Gay Harden's character and the ending that didn't make a lot of sense.

3onameathook

Well, looks like everyone else got the bad cgi covered, so I won't get into that. Story is great on how humanity will turn on each other when the chips are down, and how they'll follow just about anybody that sounds to be a little bit credible and has charisma. Movie even mentioned Jim Jones and his followers which is a good example of just how far people will actually go........I need to see this in Black & white

The Man with the Golden Doujinshi

I didn't mind the cgi. There's bad enough conventional effects in films I like too. I've seen bad cgi before and this isn't it. Vicious, starring Tom Savini, has bad cgi.

rbrown498

Tonight was the first time that I'd seen this since I saw it in the theater eight years ago, and while I enjoyed it, its faults were much more glaringly obvious to me this viewing. As others have noted, the CGI work on the tentacles was...lacking, and the ending, which I thought was brave and daring eight years ago, now seems designed to give Frank Darabont some street cred as being "edgy," after the decidedly non-edgy The Shawshank Redemption and The Green Mile. As Undeadcow noted, I think that King's novella's more ambiguous ending would have been better AND left things open for a sequel, but Darabont closed that door pretty firmly with his ending.

One of my main gripes about the film the first time I saw it had to do with the Mrs. Carmody character as played by Marcia Gay Harden. That character just seemed a bit too much, a bit too Margaret White's sister. However, I went back and re-read the novella, and that's pretty much the way that the character is written (in fact, Darabont also used a lot of dialogue straight from the book throughout the film). What I realized this viewing is that Harden has to be a damned fine actress to inspire so much disgust in me. I have to give her props for being one of the best villains in any King adaptation.

Overall, I like the film, but my admiration has been tempered quite a bit by the passage of time. I would still name it as one of the five best King adaptations, though.

Trevor

Sadly, that's not saying much.

jacob_b

Agreed. This is a re-watch for me, though first for b&w (which is kind of hard to get used to). Knowing that Frank did this movie, it makes sense to see so many future Walking Dead stars in this film. Pretty interesting to see them 3-4 years later on the show from doing the film. Wonder what their reactions and thoughts were.

jacob_b

...really? King probably has the best book to film ratio compared to other authors. There's some junk, of course, but he's got a lot of good films that came from his books. Five right off the bat are Carrie, The Shinning, It, The Green Mile, and The Shawshank Redemption.

jacob_b

I'm going to have to read the book. Took me until 15 or so minutes until the end to remember what happens (I get this ending confused with other horror films around the same time period like The Happening for some strange reason). I hated the ending then and I hate it now. As you mentioned, NO sign of any real danger or threat. After working so hard to get out and make it, you run out of gas and just decided, hey, this is it? Really? Can't just wait a bit longer, tell stories, kiss the girl, do something? And no one makes a sound? Kid doesn't scream, cry, beg for his life? Come on now. Would have liked to have seen how the kid reacted to this. It's a very lame ending to a otherwise pretty decent film with some good acting and a lot of tension. The ending is just a huge letdown.

Dick Laurent

I agree on your point and Undeadcow's. This ending always had me torn.

We did see the kid react. His eyes widened and then the scene cuts away. I would presume that's all the reaction he had time for. By the time he figured out what was happening he would have been shot by his father.

I would also like to point out there's no way it could have been suicide. He had to have shot each one (hopefully starting with his son). The shots are too close together for someone to pull the trigger themselves, "drop" the gun, someone else retrieve the gun, then muster the courage to be the next one, etc. By my count there's only enough time for aim, fire, re-aim.

jacob_b

He def killed them. That's pretty easy. But seems strange to kill the boy when he is on the lap of the woman. I just see it going as old man, old lady, woman and kid. Still to have no reaction at all from anyone, seems unnatural.

Trevor

Well, I was just counting horror films, so his arguably two best adaptations aren't horror.

It was just ok, and I at least like pretty much all of them, but given the sheer number of horror works based on his books, there are few gems imo.

exharrison

I'm personally in the camp that thinks it is best if you just enjoy the first half of It and not worry about the second half. But that is just how some people feel.

I've actually been meaning to watch The Mist for years. Glad I finally got around to it this year. I really liked watching the survivors fall apart as the movie went on. I wasn't crazy about the ending, and I was pretty sure what was gonna happen as soon as he got out of the car. But I don't think it hurt the movie too bad.

clckworang

As far as King adaptations go, I'm always surprised more people don't mention The Dead Zone. I always thought that was one of the better movies based on his work.

Gobear

Mrs. Carmody was right. The boy had to die.

A lot of people see the ending as dark irony, that if the father had waited, they would have been saved by the army. My take on it has been that the death of the boy shifted the father into a new reality in which the army is taking back territory from the monsters. If he had not killed the boy, and everyone else, the monsters would have won.

DaveyJoe

For anybody that thinks things weren't hopeless enough, go back and rewatch what happens when their entourage leaves the store. Half their crew is slaughtered by monsters after taking mere footsteps. They don't stand a chance out in the open. King himself has said that Darabont came up with a better ending than he did.

DaveyJoe

Anyway, I really do enjoy this flick, but every time I watch it, Tom Jane's performance gets worse.