Movie Review: The Mist
Oh man.. where do I start..
OK - First off, this short story is pretty good. I've read it quite a few times. Also, there are unmistakable Lovecraftian overtones in the story (as far as it deals with idiots opening up gates to other dimensions and letting very alien things in that want to eat us and/or use religion as a means of subverting us/etc).
That said - the film is about what you'd expect of any Stephen King adaptation made in the past 10-15 years..
Works OK as a made-for-tv film that you watch over a period of a few days on an otherwise boring weeknight when there's nothing else but reruns on and you have absolutely nothing else to do.
Fails as an actual "movie".
The big twist ending that King raved about is a joke.
The acting is second rate, the plot is predictable and the "aliens" are boring..
We get giant spiders and big hornet things with dinosaur heads - There's a couple scenes of some cool tentacles whipping around, and you can't see what they're attached to - that was cool.. In those cases, you actually start to think the movie is kind of cool, and their may be hope - but then they go and Fill In The Blanks and you see that the thing-that-can-not-be is actually some lame-ass prop designed by someone who thinks spiders are the end-all be all of spooky ideas.
Most of the movie seems to be a soapbox for King or the Director or whoever to stand on and fling tired, boring anti-religious commentary and petty generalizations of mock-christianity.
There are two good things about this movie.
1) I didn't pay to watch it
2) They play Dead Can Dance in the ending scene.
do NOT waste your time or money unless you have lots of both to spare, are a die-hard King fan, or you're such a monster-movie fanatic that it doesn't really matter if the film is good as long as there's a few choice scenes that will find their way to the pages of Fangoria. And by "few" i mean perhaps 2 or 3. Tops.
I rate this a 1/2 star out of 5.
OK - First off, this short story is pretty good. I've read it quite a few times. Also, there are unmistakable Lovecraftian overtones in the story (as far as it deals with idiots opening up gates to other dimensions and letting very alien things in that want to eat us and/or use religion as a means of subverting us/etc).
That said - the film is about what you'd expect of any Stephen King adaptation made in the past 10-15 years..
Works OK as a made-for-tv film that you watch over a period of a few days on an otherwise boring weeknight when there's nothing else but reruns on and you have absolutely nothing else to do.
Fails as an actual "movie".
The big twist ending that King raved about is a joke.
The acting is second rate, the plot is predictable and the "aliens" are boring..
We get giant spiders and big hornet things with dinosaur heads - There's a couple scenes of some cool tentacles whipping around, and you can't see what they're attached to - that was cool.. In those cases, you actually start to think the movie is kind of cool, and their may be hope - but then they go and Fill In The Blanks and you see that the thing-that-can-not-be is actually some lame-ass prop designed by someone who thinks spiders are the end-all be all of spooky ideas.
Most of the movie seems to be a soapbox for King or the Director or whoever to stand on and fling tired, boring anti-religious commentary and petty generalizations of mock-christianity.
There are two good things about this movie.
1) I didn't pay to watch it
2) They play Dead Can Dance in the ending scene.
do NOT waste your time or money unless you have lots of both to spare, are a die-hard King fan, or you're such a monster-movie fanatic that it doesn't really matter if the film is good as long as there's a few choice scenes that will find their way to the pages of Fangoria. And by "few" i mean perhaps 2 or 3. Tops.
I rate this a 1/2 star out of 5.