Twilight Zone revisited

Rating: 6/10 (26 November 2007)

I have not read the novella nor have I read a Stephen King book in years. I wondered as I watched this movie whether his serious accident had changed his life view dramatically. Whether the unfairness of his injuries and the random nature of his personal tragedy had changed his view of religion and religious people. Because beyond the mist and its denizens there are monstrous Christians portrayed as murderous fanatics and warped psychopaths used as curious plot devices among the humans trapped and trying to survive.
The religious discussions go on and on as if in a reworked 'Lions for Lambs.' We are made to feel as if the irrationality of literal biblical interpretation is somehow more irrational than a plot involving creatures from another dimension with a taste for humans. But, the movie as a movie works as a long familiar Twilight Zone plot...you know: group dynamics in the face of inexplicable events. I kept waiting for the camera to pull back and reveal the entire plot as some evil experiment to determine human breaking points.
It isn't really a scary film, more of a tense film. The misty monsters become almost familiar and fill familiar roles right down to living human pupae acting as grotesque hosts of grotesque spidery thingees. But, it is a confusing menagerie of evil insects with no natural order to them...some are like demented wasps, others refugees from prehistoric times, and a few are huge and lurch around making noises and looking like War of the Worlds machines. Some of the acting seemed false to me especially the interaction of father to child and the burgeoning romance between father and the new teacher in town played out while the mother/wife has been lost in the mist.
The ending is shocking and is a Frank Darabontian addition rather than King's idea of a proper conclusion. I'll let others determine whether the religious caricatures spring from King's loss of faith during his painful recovery, are a comment on current events, or are as much overkill as the overkill of the ending.
Well worth my $6.50 matinée price but I might have felt cheated at premium rates. Seemed totally over the top in its anti religion bias to this agnostic but former altar boy. But, several of Rod Serling's Twilight Zone episodes in reaction to his experiences in combat during WWII were also used to prick the bubble of mindless faith as well. And, we live in times where flesh eating beasts from another dimension can be compared to evangelical Christians to drive box office.