A great movie spoiled by a rotten ending

Rating: 3/10 (26 November 2007)

Until the last five minutes of this movie, I was prepared to walk out and say that was one of the best movies ever born out of a Stephen King story/book. The Mist is one of my favorite stories because it does what horror is supposed to do - make the unknown scary. The story and the movie do this well, giving us only a glimpse of the true horrors out in the mist and never giving anyone a sense of what kind of world was out there.
SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER The story and the movie move along together, with the small group of survivors setting out in a car, but the story ends with the giant thing crossing their path on the road and the characters realizing that, oh no, this is it - it is a whole new world and nothing is going to be the same again.
To me, that was the magic of the story. That OH NO moment right at the end.
But the movie completely changes it and makes the whole thing much more bleak ... and even depressing. I mean, I get the point of the ending, but one of the best things about a King story or novel is that the horrors don't always get resolved. We are left to wonder what might be. To resolve the matter in the movie, and in the very depressing way Darabont did, upset me.
I will say this, if I had never read the story I would give this movie a solid 7, at least (I still would think the ending is just too bleak). But seeing one of my favorite stories butchered with that ending was depressing.