This is a little unusual for TT, but I just saw this movie, and I highly recommend it. I haven't seen a truly scary movie for a long time, and I walked into the theater with low expectations. Although I've seen better, I have to say that this tops the list of Stephen King's greatest silver screen adaptations. I feel also that it touches upon issues that are often discussed here and on related blogs. I try not to spoil anything, but I do reveal some parts of the movie. You've been warned.

The movie does a great job of making you feel as though the entire world could end horribly at any moment. However, the controlled fear is ironically just a small part of the reason why I enjoyed this movie. It centers around several main characters for which you end up deeply caring for (something few horror movies these days are able to accomplish). The main characters are stuck in a large super market surrounded by a mysterious and dangerous "mist", anyone who wanders into it inexplicably kicks the bucket.

Obviously, chaos ensues among the people trapped in the store, and there's some lame overacting - but it's not distracting. The group breaks up into three parts. The rationalists, utterly unable to accept that the events unfolding before them point to something beyond natural accident, perhaps just some chemical outbreak. The second group seizes on the seemingly apocalyptic confirmation in the unfolding events and attempt to use it to dictate action and place blame. Here, we see Stephen King's penchant for portraying the religious as crazed maniacs, but still, the point is well taken (to be fair, there is this line in the movie "I believe in God, I just don't believe he's the bloodthirsty asshole you make him out to be").

The third group consists of our main characters, doing the only thing there is to do, try to understand and, ultimately, survive. I think this is the underlying point of the movie and I found it quite powerfully expressed. Humans should struggle, struggle to understand and survive, and when it seems impossible to struggle, that's when you struggle like you never have before.

Anyway, I would say that movies like this are the reason I still pay for that 10 dollar ticket.

This entry was posted on Monday, November 26th, 2007 at 6:15 am and is filed under Just For Fun, Philosophy. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site. The trackback link is: http://telicthoughts.com/the-mist/trackback/