The Mist (yeah, I know)

[marc]

Okay. It earns its R rating with language and gore (although the gore could have been much worse).  I watched it because the novella was, I think, one of King's very best and because I once saw a giant, prehistoric-looking, long-stingered flying bug on my screen door that reminded me of this story.  This adaptation...

was bleak.  Very well made, well written, well directed, but bleak.  The view of humanity should certainly sit well with all of the Calvinists out there.  As one reviewer put it, the director made every character who thought he could play God pay dearly. 

The ending, well, let's just say that the director got assurances the ending in the script (there was no real ending in the story--it just sort of stopped with no resolution) would not change, otherwise, no studio would have released this.

Just wondering if anyone has seen it.  If not, I'm certainly not recommending it, even though it's one of the best I've seen in the past year and one of the best horror movies I've seen ever.  It's just too bleak to recommend.

And it's not family friendly, even if you're the Manson family, and not good, wholesome entertainment.

I watched it Saturday, and I haven't slept well since.  The ending, I think....

[marc]

It did remind me of why I stopped reading Steven King, fwiw.

[Hehealedme]

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[marc]

I'm definitely not ready to turn my back on horror or supernatural fiction.  It's a great venue to tell morality tells.  It's just that sometimes the darkness becomes overwhelming, particularly when it hits on truth.

This is an extremely well-made movie, imho.  It's just one of those that leaves you unsettled after. 

I've seen some comments in other places from people who called it campy.  It isn't campy, and this makes me think that they may have closed themselves off to what was being said because it's such a difficult thing to hear.

I would really be interested to know if anyone else has seen this, and if so, what did you think.  Am I making too much of this?

[James Rondon]

Yet another movie depicting those who believe in God, and look to the Scriptures, as raving lunatics.

[marc]

mmm...sort of, but not entirely.  The raving lunatic lady whle being obsessed with Revelation (not unrealistic) and was clearly unbalanced.  One character plaintively told her that he believed in God, but didn't think He was was the nasty character she claimed. Another said that religion and politics were proof that man would always end up fighting each other, but his cynicism was balanced by the more hopeful views of another character--both were portrayed as good characters). 

And in the end, she was no more wrong than the protaganist. The ending changed everything, I think.  That's why this interests me--and at the same time repels me.  In the end, the movie decides that left on his own to follow what he thinks is best, man will mess up royally.
 

[Charles Sloan]

I am sooooo not interested anymore....I used to be such a huge fan of horror movies but that sure is in the past now...I can't stand watching those types of movies anymore...and I certainly can't understand why I used to be so drawn to them...well yeah, I guess I do...they fill your mind and spirit with unecessary fear, terror, violence, madness and so on...   

so no thank you for that movie!... 

I even threw all the horror books that I had in the trash a few years ago...

I admire these comments.

I went to the movies to watch this when it first came out not knowing what kind of movie it was (I so should have read some reviews). I was absolutely astounded at how evil this movie was, and the things that were depicted in this film. On the way home I actually wept because of the realization that these ideas came from the imagination of man, and how our culture is completely encompassed with despotic evils on every side.

As you mentioned, I will no longer be attending such films.

[marc]

I thought the movie was rather Calvinist.  'course I'm not a big fan of Calvinism.  I think that the worldview reflected in the film was very close to that of the Puritans.

I'm not sure what to make of the fact that the lady who left in the beginning survived.  It is interesting, though, that all of the crazy lady's prophecies came true.  I'm not sure that she was a prophet of God, though--I may be reading something into dialogue and the shape of the creatures and what I know of King's influences, but I think she may have been a prophet of Cthlthu. 

If so, the world of this film is an even darker place.

But like I said in the beginning, I'm not recommending this movie to anyone.  It belongs on the list of movies I will never watch again.  it was dark and warped, but it was also deeper than most other movies I've seen lately.  It was someting like reading Melville's later stories, after he had given up any real faith and believed that God, if He existed, was impersonal and distant. 

Not something to show at a church youth night.  Movies don't get any darker than this.

Charles, I'm a little shocked you went and saw this, even.  Did you sit through the whole thing?

[Hehealedme]

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[Hehealedme]

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[marc]

If so, the world of this film is an even darker place.

But like I said in the beginning, I'm not recommending this movie to anyone.  It belongs on the list of movies I will never watch again.  it was dark and warped, but it was also deeper than most other movies I've seen lately.  It was someting like reading Melville's later stories, after he had given up any real faith and believed that God, if He existed, was impersonal and distant. 

Not something to show at a church youth night.  Movies don't get any darker than this.

If you wouldn't recommand others to watch this movie, then why did you go see it in the first place?...and knowing that darkness belongs to the devil and that light belongs to Christ, then why follow darkness?...

I remember too well for instance when my daughter wanted to watch the movie about Chucky and his bride...she thought that the bride was so cute and sooo sexy!...my husband didn't mind at all that she watched that movie but I sure did mind!...(but what did I know of such things!...I was the bad guy in all this, I was only the dumb mother of that child that wouldn't permit her to do what she wanted!...   ) she was around eleven or twelve years old at the time and she then had nightmares for almost a week!... ...but still loved watching that movie...


I want to know what a movie is about before allowing myself to watch it....
Marc...I sure recommand you to do the same for now on...I am sure that God would recommand you the same thing!...Marc, you are free to do whatever you want but I say that you need to repent, you need to stop going on that path, you will surely regret it if you don't...

We are not to even take a small peek on the dark side...it isn't worth it...

As I mentioned earlier, I watched the movie because I had read the book.  Except for the end, it was a faithful adaptation.

I value a certain amount of intelligence in movies, and this was, as I said, deeper than most.  I try not to only expose myself to things I agree with. I believe that a window into the darkness in the human soul is of much value when trying to let the light in.  More later.

[marc]

I was interrupted while typing earlier, so to finish my thought...

(btw, if anyone plans to see the movie, I'm about to ruin the ending.)

After watching this, I was struck with the hope/no-hope conundrum we find ourselves in.  In spite of all my negative thoughts about the darkness and gloom of the moive, as I type this, I realize that one message of the movie was that perhaps hope exists if we don't give up.  But when we do surrender, when we decide to play God, we give up whatever shot there may be.

The lady that survived is the one who did what she thought must be done with no regard for her own safety.  In the end, she saves her kid and a lot of others as well, it seems. otoh, the "hero" of the movie makes a foolish promise to his child, and then carries out the promise by doing harm to the child to prevent what he thinks would be a worse harm from coming to him.  Yet if he had been patient, salvation would have come in just a few minutes.

In the store, everyone was right and everyone was wrong.  The ultraratioal lawyer was made to look foolish because of his denial of what was happening around him.  The crazy lady was technically right about what would happen, but had lost touch with who God is.  The protaganist was heroic while in a protective mode, but when he became active, he was a failure.  Even his trip to the pharmacy was, in the end, futile. 

The movie still seems more darkly Calvinistic than anything to me, but I do wonder about the hope that was present in the end, a hope that most failed to grasp.

[James Rondon]

mmm...sort of, but not entirely.  The raving lunatic lady whle being obsessed with Revelation (not unrealistic) and was clearly unbalanced.  One character plaintively told her that he believed in God, but didn't think He was was the nasty character she claimed. Another said that religion and politics were proof that man would always end up fighting each other, but his cynicism was balanced by the more hopeful views of another character--both were portrayed as good characters).

As the Scripture says, "the devils also believe, and tremble".

[marc]

I don't follow.  How does this fit in?