The Mist
I just got finished watching The Mist, which is a film I'd wanted to see for some time now, and not just because it was an interesting horror film based on a Stephen King novella.
No, the reason I wanted to see it was because, in my second year of Film Studies at university, I had done an adaptation of The Mist for a script project (well, a scene and various suggestions for how to adapt it, along with effects, cinematography and the like), and I wanted to see how the actual movie had ended up differing from my "version".
I envisioned The Mist in a kind of B-movie way, somewhat similar to the way King said he originally imagined it when he was writing it. It had a slightly kitschy, 1950s monster-movie feel to it, with more emphasis on the suspense and only a limited amount of time devoted to actually showing the monsters. I had the idea of shooting it in black-and-white, with the only colours being the occasional one that would need to stand out, such as blood or Mrs. Carmody's yellow cardigan (and all this was back in 1999-2000, years before Sin City and the like...). The particular scene I adapted into script form was the scene when Brent Norton and his "Flat Earth Society" (what the story called those few who refused to believe that anything unusual was out there in the mist) were going out of the supermarket, and the main character asked them to take a length of clothesline and tie it to something when it had all played out, to prove they had gotten at least 300 feet. Of course, they don't get that far, and the scene ends with the clothesline been pulled back in and turning blood-red at the end. I thought that was a pretty striking image, and had it planned with lots of close-ups of the clothesline being pulled in and slowly turning red, and quick cuts to horrified faces watching the scene and listening to the screams outside.
The movie was in colour, not black-and-white, but I guess that's not too bad. The clothesline scene was shot somewhat differently to the way I'd envisioned it too - no or very few screams from outside, and more focus on the fight to hold onto the clothesline as it was nearly pulled out of their hands by something. Still not too bad. The bit I thought that kind of ruined it, however, was the very end of the scene, where instead of just pulling in a bloodied clothesline that's apparently been chewed through, we're shown that it is actually still attached to the lower torso of the man who'd tied it round his waist. I thought that was a little too obvious a shot, and kind of ruined the tension.
Other things about the movie... the effects were pretty good, CGI (of course) that still managed to look - where appropriate - a little B-movie cheesy. I did really like the fact that several of the monsters (the bugs and spiders) had human-like faces. That was creepy. And while I think they showed too much of some monsters and not enough of others, I do think they managed to keep the vaguely Lovecraftian, Cthulhu-esque quality of them. The casting seemed a little off (again, I'd had ideas for people playing specific roles in my head years ago, so I might be a little biased there...) - in particular, I'm not sure I was able to successfully believe the man who played the Punisher could be an artist.
Things I didn't like about the movie: the addition of several characters and a subplot that I swear must have been put in just to get some romantic tension going. In the book, the main character ends up having a kind of desperate one-night stand with another woman in the supermarket, borne more out of a simple need for comfort than anything else. They ditched that in the movie (couldn't show the main character to have a weakness like that, maybe?) and instead put in a subplot with a young cashier and a soldier who very nearly got it on but didn't. And then she got bitten by one of the bugs and died. Which I thought was really just a stupid Sledgehammer of Plot moment if ever there was one.
They didn't seem too confident that the viewers would believe that Mrs. Carmody could get people so brainwashed that they'd be willing to try to sacrifice a small child, so they had to have her orchestrate the killing of someone else first, which I personally thought actually lessened her power.
Finally, the ending sucked. In the novella, the main character, his son and a couple of others manage to escape the supermarket and try to drive to safety. They try to find his wife but can't get to his house and so we never know if she's okay. The story ends with the mist still there, but the possiblity of there being somewhere safe to go, and the characters not giving up. In the movie, however, we're shown that his wife ends up dead and, when they run out of gas the MC ends up shooting the others (including his 5-year-old son), supposedly to "save" them from whatever's in the mist. Then the mist clears, the military are everywhere, and the film ends.
W.T.F.
I can cope with "realistic" or "downbeat" endings. Hell, sometimes I even like them. But this? This just seemed like a giant "fuck you!" to the audience who'd been investing everything in these people for so long - not to mention that it wasn't anywhere near as good as the story's ending. I can't see why they had to change it - if they didn't want a "hopeful" ending they could have just had them driving onwards into the mist, with the strange creatures moving all around them. That would have worked too.
To further clarify: I don't have an issue with the idea of the MC killing everyone else - including his son - to save them from the horrible fate of being eaten by the monsters. The thing is, there was no threat like that when he actually pulled the trigger. None whatsoever. They'd just been driving for a while and were going to run out of gas soon. I've seen comments that this was the director's intent - to be either "anti-Hollywood" or to show some of his personal political/religious views - which again really fucks up what was otherwise a pretty good film. Furthermore, even if we're willing to accept the suicides, the arrival of the army and the clearing of the mist literally a couple of minutes afterwards is just... Arrgh. If he really, really had to kill them, then a better ending might have been for him to just exit the car and wander off into the mist. The way it was done, it wasn't so much a "fuck you!" to Hollywood, but as I said, a "fuck you!" to the audience.
In conclusion: It's an enjoyable enough film, but I prefer the book - and my version - better overall.
No, the reason I wanted to see it was because, in my second year of Film Studies at university, I had done an adaptation of The Mist for a script project (well, a scene and various suggestions for how to adapt it, along with effects, cinematography and the like), and I wanted to see how the actual movie had ended up differing from my "version".
I envisioned The Mist in a kind of B-movie way, somewhat similar to the way King said he originally imagined it when he was writing it. It had a slightly kitschy, 1950s monster-movie feel to it, with more emphasis on the suspense and only a limited amount of time devoted to actually showing the monsters. I had the idea of shooting it in black-and-white, with the only colours being the occasional one that would need to stand out, such as blood or Mrs. Carmody's yellow cardigan (and all this was back in 1999-2000, years before Sin City and the like...). The particular scene I adapted into script form was the scene when Brent Norton and his "Flat Earth Society" (what the story called those few who refused to believe that anything unusual was out there in the mist) were going out of the supermarket, and the main character asked them to take a length of clothesline and tie it to something when it had all played out, to prove they had gotten at least 300 feet. Of course, they don't get that far, and the scene ends with the clothesline been pulled back in and turning blood-red at the end. I thought that was a pretty striking image, and had it planned with lots of close-ups of the clothesline being pulled in and slowly turning red, and quick cuts to horrified faces watching the scene and listening to the screams outside.
The movie was in colour, not black-and-white, but I guess that's not too bad. The clothesline scene was shot somewhat differently to the way I'd envisioned it too - no or very few screams from outside, and more focus on the fight to hold onto the clothesline as it was nearly pulled out of their hands by something. Still not too bad. The bit I thought that kind of ruined it, however, was the very end of the scene, where instead of just pulling in a bloodied clothesline that's apparently been chewed through, we're shown that it is actually still attached to the lower torso of the man who'd tied it round his waist. I thought that was a little too obvious a shot, and kind of ruined the tension.
Other things about the movie... the effects were pretty good, CGI (of course) that still managed to look - where appropriate - a little B-movie cheesy. I did really like the fact that several of the monsters (the bugs and spiders) had human-like faces. That was creepy. And while I think they showed too much of some monsters and not enough of others, I do think they managed to keep the vaguely Lovecraftian, Cthulhu-esque quality of them. The casting seemed a little off (again, I'd had ideas for people playing specific roles in my head years ago, so I might be a little biased there...) - in particular, I'm not sure I was able to successfully believe the man who played the Punisher could be an artist.
Things I didn't like about the movie: the addition of several characters and a subplot that I swear must have been put in just to get some romantic tension going. In the book, the main character ends up having a kind of desperate one-night stand with another woman in the supermarket, borne more out of a simple need for comfort than anything else. They ditched that in the movie (couldn't show the main character to have a weakness like that, maybe?) and instead put in a subplot with a young cashier and a soldier who very nearly got it on but didn't. And then she got bitten by one of the bugs and died. Which I thought was really just a stupid Sledgehammer of Plot moment if ever there was one.
They didn't seem too confident that the viewers would believe that Mrs. Carmody could get people so brainwashed that they'd be willing to try to sacrifice a small child, so they had to have her orchestrate the killing of someone else first, which I personally thought actually lessened her power.
Finally, the ending sucked. In the novella, the main character, his son and a couple of others manage to escape the supermarket and try to drive to safety. They try to find his wife but can't get to his house and so we never know if she's okay. The story ends with the mist still there, but the possiblity of there being somewhere safe to go, and the characters not giving up. In the movie, however, we're shown that his wife ends up dead and, when they run out of gas the MC ends up shooting the others (including his 5-year-old son), supposedly to "save" them from whatever's in the mist. Then the mist clears, the military are everywhere, and the film ends.
W.T.F.
I can cope with "realistic" or "downbeat" endings. Hell, sometimes I even like them. But this? This just seemed like a giant "fuck you!" to the audience who'd been investing everything in these people for so long - not to mention that it wasn't anywhere near as good as the story's ending. I can't see why they had to change it - if they didn't want a "hopeful" ending they could have just had them driving onwards into the mist, with the strange creatures moving all around them. That would have worked too.
To further clarify: I don't have an issue with the idea of the MC killing everyone else - including his son - to save them from the horrible fate of being eaten by the monsters. The thing is, there was no threat like that when he actually pulled the trigger. None whatsoever. They'd just been driving for a while and were going to run out of gas soon. I've seen comments that this was the director's intent - to be either "anti-Hollywood" or to show some of his personal political/religious views - which again really fucks up what was otherwise a pretty good film. Furthermore, even if we're willing to accept the suicides, the arrival of the army and the clearing of the mist literally a couple of minutes afterwards is just... Arrgh. If he really, really had to kill them, then a better ending might have been for him to just exit the car and wander off into the mist. The way it was done, it wasn't so much a "fuck you!" to Hollywood, but as I said, a "fuck you!" to the audience.
In conclusion: It's an enjoyable enough film, but I prefer the book - and my version - better overall.