Stephen King, Master of Clichés

Rating: 2/10 (25 November 2007)

I finally realized that the King is Dead. I kept hoping that he might rise from the ashes and actually start writing scary stories again. After watching this crapdaptation of his novella, The Mist, I finally realized that he was never really that good to begin with. Literally, every character in this piece of garbage is a cliché. You have the strong, sensitive wasp artist type with his beautiful lakeside home and perfect wife and sensitive boy. Next, add the unbelievably dumb and intolerant hick local mechanic and the feisty old teacher (representing the secular, public employee sector) bemoaning how underfunded the schools are in their obviously wealthy community. What modern horror story would be complete without an unbelievably aggressive Christian fanatic to prey upon the weak minded? She was so over the top that I couldn't help but think that Mr. King was also on the soap box preaching to us about how we're supposed to hate anyone with deep religious convictions. I don't go to church myself, but I was actually offended, especially when the audience was goaded into applause when she was finally murdered by the humble, sensitive cashier. All of this cheap drama takes place in, of course, King's safe little Waspy town of Castle Rock. Maybe he should start a theme park...
The ending was COMPLETELY awful. Although the hero had, at one point, warned about leaving the grocery store before the evil religious nut turned the place into a Jonestown, he ends up doing a Jonestown at the end by killing everyone in the car for their own good. What was so imminent at that point? The giant bug had paid no attention to them; the spiders couldn't get in. Why not just wait? Talk about defeatism! What if the mother in Cujo had taken a similar tact when she was stuck in her old, hot car with her asthmatic boy with the rabid Saint Bernard waiting outside?! A more interesting tact in The Mist would have been for the hottie teacher to rescue the boy from his suicidal dad, have Dad chase her and then have the troops take him out before he catches them. Or not. The movie was still essentially boring BECAUSE WHO REALLY CARES ABOUT A BUNCH OF TRITE, Cliché CHARACTERS?
I gave the movie 2 stars for the fun monster bugs.