The Mist

Plot synopsis:
**********************************************************************************************************************************************************THE FOLLOWING IS NOT COMPOSED BY ME. THIS APPEARS IN ONE OF THE MOVIE SPOILER WEBSITES AND IS WRITTEN BY SOMEONE CALLED 'John C'. ITS SO DESCRIPTIVE AND FANTASTIC THAT I DECIDED TO SHARE IT WITH OTHER IMDB USERS. THE TEXT HAS NOT BEEN CHANGED IN ANY WAY AND APPEARS EXACTLY AS WRITTEN BY THE ORIGINAL WRITER.********************************************************************************************************************************************************The movie begins with David Drayton (Thomas Jane), the main character, hand painting a movie poster for an upcoming film. A collection of his other original works, including a poster of The Thing can be seen in his studio. That night, a massive storm strikes Bridgton, Maine, the setting of the story, and his house loses power and a tree smashes through his studio window, ruining his latest painting. The next morning David, his eight-year-old son Billy (Nathan Gamble), and wife Steff (Kelly Collins Lintz) are cleaning up debris and assessing damage from the storm. Outside, the family notices a thick mist approaching from off the nearby lake. In the storm, the Drayton family boathouse has been crush by a fallen tree from their neighbors house. They go to the neighbor, Brent Norton (Andre Braugher), who is a lawyer, to exchange insurance information about the boathouse. David notices that Brent's Mercedes convertible has been smashed by a falling tree. Brent asks David if he will be driving into town to pick up food and supplies and if he could get a ride seeing as the storm claimed his car. David says yes and David, Billy, and Brent drive to town in David's SUV for the grocery store. David's wife, Steff, remains behind at the house. While driving to the supermarket they view several electric company trucks heading in the other direction, and oddly, several dozen military vehicles heading to the military base. David says to Brent if he's ever heard of all the crazy conspiracy stories about the military base and project arrowhead. Brent just laughs.Upon arriving at the supermarket they find the store to be packed with people also stocking up on supplies. Three military men in the store are on leave. The soldiers are approached by a Military Policeman (Eric Kelly McFarland) to return to base and they their leave has been suspended and they have thirty minutes to finish shopping. After a minute elapses from the time David, Billy and Brent enter the store, a man, Jeff Miller, a local townsperson, flies into the market, bloodied and frantic. The man immediately begins screaming about something hidden in the mist that is attacking and killing people. Everyone looks outside, and the mist has now completely surrounded the grocery store and nothing can be seen outside of the store but white smoke. Several people flee the store immediately and screams are heard shortly after coming from outside. Jeff tells everyone to seal the doorway to the store and to remain inside. However, there is a lady (Melissa Suzanne McBride) who worries that she's left her two young children on their own at home. She wants to leave the supermarket to go home to check on them, and asks everybody to volunteer to accompany her. Nobody volunteers, so she leaves the supermarket on her own.David meanwhile realizes already that they will be spending the next several hours, if not days in the store, and goes to the back of the store to check the generator. In the backroom of the store where the generator is, the loading dock, he hears something outside of the large loading dock door. Eventually the thing, the creature, starts pressing heavily into the door and he runs back into the main store. He tells three men a young male worker what he heard through the door and they dont believe him. David also tells him that the generator is smoking and might not work for that much long if it is not fixed. The five of them go back to the loading dock in the back of the store to fix the generator.They conclude that the generators exhaust system is clogged outside and that someone must physically remove wha'ts unclogging the generator. A young bagboy of the grocery store, Norm (Chris Owen), volunteers to go outside. David warns and pleads for no one to go outside. Norm and the other men ignore the warnings and open the large loading dock garage door. Upon opening the door the mist has become incredibly thick and begins slowly entering the loading dock. Before anyone can react, a large tentacle snags Norms leg and pulls him under the door. He grabs the door and David pulls him back into the loading dock. Unfortunately several more tentacles follow Norm back into the loading dock and begin ripping flesh from his body. Bloodied and terrified Norm is dragged outside into the mist. David quickly grabs an axe and manages to chop off the end of one of the tentacles. They close the loading dock doorway. The mist concealed what the tentacles were connected to. The generator is still clogged.The men are in shock and go back into the grocery to tell Brent what they've discovered, and to ask him if he has any idea what to do. Brent however lashes out at them, believing they are playing a joke on him by saying that monsters are dwelling in the mist. Brent believes that some of the townspeople are setting him up for a prank, a joke, and that no monsters exist. Brent says that he knows it's just a storm and that trying to joke about monsters is not going to work on him. He says that the men are trying to prank him because he was the lawyer who represented people who sued this grocery store and lost. David and the men though show Brent and several others the piece of tentacle that David had severed from the monster. Brent has already made up his mind though, and he says that it proves nothing and that the mist is nothing more than part of a storm.Brent organizes a group of people to leave the store to drive and find help, reassuring them that nothing is going to happen if they leave the store into the mist. One man says that when Brent and his group leave, he will go to the parking lot and retrieve a shotgun from another mans car who is to afraid to retrieve the gun himself, and he will bring the gun back into the store. David asks the man to tie a 300 foot rope around his waist, so that the people in the store will know that he made it at least as far as the rope goes. Brent and his group leave first. The man with the rope leaves right behind them. After a minute of silence, waiting for the man to come back with the shotgun, his rope begins pulling rapidly out of the store. David and several others try to hang on but suffer rope burn. Finally the rope stops pulling and David and the other pull on the rope. Eventually the rope starts coming back into the store red, covered in fresh dripping blood, and everyone in the store begins crying and screaming. The lower, severed half, of the mans body is still attached to the end of the rope. They decide not to pull the torso in and let it rest in front of the store. The remaining people assume that Brent and his group have also died and they realize the only way to survive is barricade everything in front of the storefront. One of the store supervisors observes the entire front of the store is large glass windows. The supervisor, Ollie Weeks (Toby Jones), organizes all of the dog food and fertilizer to be stacked up. The wall is only five feet tall and the remaining three feet of glass is exposed.Since the moment that they've been trapped in the store, the people have been split into two groups. One groups follows David and Ollie, and believe that the group must barricade the doorway and survive until help comes. The second group however listens to a deeply religious woman, Ms. Carmody (Marcia Gay Harden), who believes that God has sent down his plagues and wraths upon their town and the world for their sins. Ms. Carmody slowly convinces many people that God is angry at the sins of the world and has seen down monsters and demons in the mist to claim all those are not worthy of salvation. She cries out that she's a righteous follower of God and that anyone who wanted to be saved should listen to her words and scripture. David and several others are convinced that this is not a biblical problem and that it can be rationally solved.Both groups don't have a chance to argue that night though, as giant, two feet long insects begin landing on the windows of the stores front. The insects though are not the problem; its the giant six feet pterodactyl like predator birds that are now crashing into the windows that are alarming. The birds are killing the insects, but whenever a bird crashes into an insect resting on a window the windows crack further. Eventually a bird shatters a window cleanly, allowing several insects to fly through the window. The insects attack and kill only a young girl, who is a worker of the grocery store and also a love interest of one of the military personnel, Private Jessup (Sam Witwer). The people use shovels, rakes, and sticks to beat and kill the insects, but two large bird creatures also enter the store. The first bird kills a man immediately upon entering the store and is in turn killed by being set on fire. The other bird is shot by Ollie who wields a six shooter pistol. The fire used to kill the bird though also severely burns a man. He is burned so badly that he says that the pain is unbearable, and begs to be killed so end his suffering. David and those watching the burn victim tell him to hang on a little longer.David and his group set out to outside go to a nearby pharmacy in the shopping plaza to retrieve burn medicine, antibiotics, and painkillers for the burn victim. Jessup sees the group leaving the store and volunteers also. On the mission they encounter the Military Policeman who ordered the three military soldiers on leave to return to duty. The MP has been strung up in a spiders web and has large pulsing sores covering his body. Coughing and stuttering, he says that everything is our fault and that the military is responsible. The sores on his body then open up to reveal live spiders growing inside of them. David and his group see the source of the smaller spiders, several large three feet long spiders and begin to retreat back to the grocery store. In the retreat they lose two people to the spiders. The large spiders have claws and fangs, but also shoot acidic webbing. One man dies from the webbing burning through his jeans and flesh, eventually bleeding to death. The other victim is surrounded and attacked by spiders and killed.David and his group make it back to the store ask the soldier who came with them on the mission what the MP meant by it being the military's fault. The soldier says his two other soldiers who are in the store can explain it better, but the group discovers that the two other soldiers have committed suicide by hanging themselves in the loading docks. The remaining soldier says that all he knows was that scientists had found a way to open up doorways to other worlds and dimensions and they called it Project Arrowhead. This is all revealed to the remaining survivors in the store. Ms. Carmody says that the doorway was hell and that now we are paying for the soldiers' mistakes. She demands that the remaining soldier be sacrificed for his sins, for bringing these monster here. She says that God demands his blood. The soldier pleads that he was just a lowly solider and the scientists were the ones who did all of the experimenting. Ms. Carmody exclaims that we have tampered with God's power, we have split God's atoms, used God's stem cells and allowed abortions and now those responsible must suffer. One of the men who has sided with her, lunges and stabs the soldier three times in the stomach. To David and his groups horror, the soldier is tossed through the front door to the outside. Bleeding and alive, he begs to be let back inside. A gigantic monster approaches the store and grabs the soldier and kills him. The monster leaves and Ms. Carmody says that the monster has been appeased tonight, but more people must be offered up eventually.Ms. Carmody's biblical ramblings become more fervent and frequent. She starts talking commandingly about a human sacrifice. David assembles several people, to accompany him, because he intends to break out of the store and see if he can drive through the mist and find a place where the mist is not there. David, his son, Ollie, and six others agree that in a couple nights they will leave after stockpiling food and supplies under the radar of Ms. Carmody and her group. The night of the departure Ms. Carmody catches them before they can leave and assembles everyone else in the store to prevent them from leaving. David tells her to move but she counters by saying that not only can David not leave the store, but that David's son Billy, must be the next sacrifice. David and Ollie are approached by several men armed with knives. Ollie doesn't hesitate though and opens fire on Ms. Carmody with his pistol. He shoots her in the stomach, stunning her followers, and then he executes her with a bullet to the forehead, completely horrifying them and causing them and back off. Ollie points the gun at the knife-wielding men, causing them to retreat, and motions for David and the group to make a break for it. On their way out, a furious woman, who was a very ardent follower and appeared to have had a very close friendship with Mrs. Carmody, screams at Ollie, calling him a murderer, and approaches the group, intent on killing Billy herself in order to avenge Mrs. Carmody, but runs off in terror when Ollie points the gun at her.David and the group get outside and run for David's SUV. One of the men falls and is helped by two other men. Two of them are attacked and killed by spiders and the other runs back to the market and is welcomed inside. Ollie reaches the SUV first but is killed by the giant creature that killed the soldier from before. David, his son Billy, a woman, the original man who warned of the creatures in the mist, and an older woman, eventually make it into the SUV. David, before driving away sees the gun that Ollie dropped, and grabs it off the hood of his car while a giant spider climbs on the car. David starts the car and drives by the front of the store while the survivors that followed Ms. Carmody, who have now snapped back to reality and realize what they had done, watch him drive by.David, his son, and the three others drive through the mist for hours looking for help or a sign of clear until the SUV runs out of gas. On the ride they first stop at David's house where he sees his wife's dead body in a spiders web. On the main roads they see tons of cars that have been overturned, a school bus full of webbed children, and tons of debris and roadside damage. While driving, they also encounter the largest creature in the film, a massive six legged monster covered in thousands of smaller creatures and tentacles that is the size of several large buildings, and is so high that only its legs can be seen as its head is well above the trees. With the SUV out of gas they pull over. They have not been able to drive out of the mist. With Billy asleep, David pulls out the gun and nods with silent agreement with the other members of the group. David says that there are only four bullets, not enough to kill all of them, and David will stay alive and let the creatures kill him saying that he will figure something out.Four gunshots are heard and four flashes of light are emitted from the car. David exits the car screaming for the monsters to come get him. He has shot and killed his eight-year-old son, and the three other survivors, and is now waiting for his own death. A large rumbling noise emerges in the distance, something is approaching David. Screaming and begging to die, a monster does not reveal itself in the mist. Instead it is a U.S. military tank. In fact, it is a full military battalion. Tanks, soldiers with flame throwers and rifles, and truckloads of survivors are now traveling on the road. Some of the survivors are from the grocery store and one of them is the one woman who left by herself, who is completely unscathed and has her two children with her. Realizing that he just murdered his son and three innocent people only moments before they would have been rescued and that they should have never left the market in the first place, David collapses and two soldiers approach him unaware of what David has just done.Credits then roll.

Tags: psychological, depressing, murder, thought-provoking, cult, violence, atmospheric, insanity, tragedy

Review:
You care about the characters, the scary scenes are scary, and the whole film is carried off with an efficiency, a lack of pretension and a strong idea of what makes a good, if not great, horror film.And the ending...
In most modern horror (like the Saw series) there is a greater emphasis on gore than the horror of the human condition and this movie, kudos to the actors, help weave a tale that disgusts you inside and out without the pure reliance on blood spatter (although granted there is a fair amount of that).Thomas Jane (leading male and well known from The Punisher) has a brilliant and emotional portrayal of his character in a mind-blowing situation that we feel intimately associated with thanks to his acting and great directing.
It pays off: They succeed in pulling you into a traumatic situation made worse with a mixture of religious zealotry, military conspiracy, and small-town ignorance that explodes in your face wondering if your humanity is worse off facing The Mist or the human condition.There is no spoiler here but I will say this about the ending: It's what makes the movie and makes it so much better than most of the crap put out there in horror land.
It makes you think hard about your humanity and your soul and about what is right or wrong in any given situation involving our mortality.I would suggest this movie to anyone that likes horror or science fiction and wants something a little more intense than, say, Army of Darkness (one of my personal favorites for totally different reasons).
Films like The Shining, Shawshank Redemption, Stand by Me, The Stand and 1408 are usually pretty far between (Note that I consider The Green Mile and Carrie to be the most over-rated King adaptations, so they do not appear here).
I like most of the films that have been made from Stephen King novels, novellas, and short stories mainly because I like Stephen King, but I do not recommend many of them as truly good films.Frank Darabont's (writing and directing) The Mist adapts a horror novella of the same name.
King's horror work has been the most difficult material to adapt, but this film is comparable to other genre stand-outs such as The Shining and 1408.A brief, dramatic thunderstorm is followed by a freak mist that descends on a small New England town.
But serious concern doesn't start until one of the locals runs to the supermarket with blood spatters on his clothing and talking of monsters in the mist.Indeed, there are horrors outside in the fog, but there are also horrors inside the market - as paranoia, irrationality and religion come into conflict with practical issues of survival.Unlike many horror films, The Mist examines fear and its effects realistically, looks at the horror created by forces beyond human control and the even more terrifying horror that fear creates through forces that are completely within our grasp - our own fears, our beliefs and our treatment of each other.
One warning: Do not watch this film expecting a cheesy/entertaining horror, or even a high-quality entertaining slasher as this film is -all- about the characters and how extreme circumstances can bring out the extreme sides of human nature.By the end of the film I was literally on the edge of my seat - cider forgotten - with my hand over my mouth.Masterfully written screenplay (from the original short story by Stephen King) and masterfully directed, anyone who is generally sceptical about adaptations of Stephen King "horrors" will be rewarded by watching this, Frank Darabont has done a typically marvelous job (see Shawshank and Green Mile) and well and truly delivered..
We watch as alliances are formed, religious paranoia takes hold and, nicely, the movie takes the time to establish characters whom we come to care for before the true action begins.
Oh, and if you read original novella, like I did, you'll also be pleasantly surprised because THIS movie is true to the story it came from.Well done Frank Darabont for directing a great Stephen King adaptation ...
Every aspect of film making comes together here.To summarize the story-in a small town in Main, VI, a man/David Drayton/and his son, join a big group of people hiding from supernatural creatures in a supermarket.
And it ought to be, as it has all the right components: a seasoned writer/director with several outstanding films to his credit, notably "The Green Mile" and "The Shawshank Redemption"; a super-solid cast; a good music score (except for the use of that annoying, vaguely Balkan/Mediterranean/Middle-Eastern wailing women chorus to signifying deep tragedy—please, give it a rest already), a depressing visual look suitable to the story, and workmanlike dialog.Yet with all that, I gave it only a "5" score.
My fundamental disappointment with this movie is (1) that it somehow never became greater than the sum of its parts, and (2) it was predictable—even the controversial ending, to some extent, and the final final ending, absolutely.Just as with sorority house slasher films, where you can reliably warn the cute blond NOT to open the door to the room in the attic, in "The Mist" you could generally finger which character was going to make it to the end alive or not, almost as soon as he or she was introduced in the story (spoiler alert: it's a horror movie, some people die).
In fact, my biggest surprise was a car starting promptly and driving off when needed, rather than the typical horror movie cliché of an endlessly grinding starter and/or tire stuck in the mud.On the plus side, the film did a quite good job of using the considerable acting strengths of the cast to deliver a fair amount of character development with relatively few lines of dialog.
The pacing, though deliberate at times, was neither plodding nor frantic, and the unobtrusive and efficient cinematography let you focus on the story.I'm happy that Stephen King found this film version of his book so frightening, but for me, the most chilling part of the movie was the frozen food section in the supermarket..
This film adaptation of Stephen King's "The Mist" is one of the best.Frank Darabont did it with "The Shawshank Redemption" and "The Green Mile".
(e.g.: the action sequences are filmed in a way that i never has seen before: a kinda of flash zooming.) With "The Mist" you feel like one of the people inside the store, trapped by monsters.
In my opinion, The Mist falls under one of the best Stephen King book-to-movie made films out yet.
Watching this movie, you may be entertained by these elements:monsters of decent CGI quality sci-fi/fantasy elements skillful construction of threatening atmosphere skillfully copied and implemented elements from other movies violent death scenes of good visual quality "no-brains-required"-plot pseudo-psychological story-arcs (I know they are popular) a horror story that encompasses more than just monsters unusual endingsStephen KingIf you expected a 10-stars-movie I have to warn you of the following:bad dialog (stereotyped, lacking sense, not believable) 2-dimensional stereotype characters unimaginative monsters scenarios in which every death is a result of stupid actions predictable events, actions and plot developments lack of sense to the few not predictable events unrealistic events and actions which are used(/required) to further the plot development badly constructed endings which are only there to shock close resemblance to movies that you may already know Stephen KingMost of these are pretty common in Hollywood productions...Though not as frequent, usually.
"The Mist" originally appeared in the 1980 horror anthology "Dark Forces" and was later reedited and included in the Stephen King short story collection "Skeleton Crew."Before making the leap to the silver screen,"The Mist" was also released as a fully dramatized audio version and served as an inspiration for the successful video game franchises "Half-Life" and "Silent Hill".A large group of people is trapped in a big shopping mall.Shortly after arriving at the packed supermarket a local runs through the doors screaming that "something in the mist took his neighbor."It seems that something very dangerous is hidden in the fog...Of course the trapped in a building formula is nothing new,but the idea of not knowing what has them trapped is utterly fascinating."The Mist" is atmospheric,incredibly well-acted and the use of "Host of Seraphim" by Dead Can Dance during the depressing climax is absolutely wonderful.9 out of 10..
) but i cried this time really like a baby, not for love, or for niceness, i cried for emptiness, the emptiness a horror movie should give you, it should scare you, and it succeeded with me perfectly, 200%.Oh, after i cried, i screamed, and then i started shaking seriously and feeling sick.OK, think of me of a fool, but i truly loved this movie, even if i now hate it and probably never gonna watch it again XD ahahahahah, but this is what real horror is all about isn't it?
I am not Christian, but I entirely respect the religion and didn't want to be raised and convinced of a premature hate to the religion because of one annoying character and a good scripting.Stephen King wrote the book in which this movie is based.
This movie will leave you disgusted, and not in a good way.I love horror films, despite the vast majority of them being generally sub-par when pitted against other genres.
But the biggest problem with the movie is the use of abject stupidity on the part of the characters to achieve "tension" or to drag out boring action so the timing of the scene "works." You've seen this kind of thing before: The main character sees and hears something pounding on a garage door, to the point where the door bulges inward several feet and threatens to give way.
I mean sure, you wouldn't come across a situation like this in real life, but I refuse to believe that's how people would act if a monster in the mist actually ever did appear in my town.
I'm not even going to go into how bad the CGI is because I don't want to get attacked by people who will try to tell me you don't need good cgi to enjoy a movie.
From there the story alternates between the shoppers trying to survive against the various carnivorous entities that have them under siege, and the interpersonal drama that takes hold as a religious zealot in their midst does her utmost to convert the survivors into her own version of Jonestown, and it's on this component of the story that the movie stumbles  though not fatally.If there was one facet of King's story that screamed out for re-work, it was the sub-plot involving the bible thumping Mrs. Carmody (Marcia Gay Harden) which rang hollow in the novella, and doesn't fare any better here.
Fortunately, both Darabont's screenplay, and King's story upon which it is based, have the good sense to forward the plot at a quick enough pace so as not to allow things to become bogged down in a stereotypically bogus anti-religious tirade which, at times, flirts with seriously derailing this movie.Eschewing leading actors and instead opting for character players, The Mist doesn't disappoint when it comes to acting and effects, both of which are of high caliber.
Devotees of King's original story may find themselves taken aback by Darabont's decision to pen a decisive ending to the tale, rather than the open-ended conclusion chosen by King, however in an e-mail to the director after reviewing Darabont's ending, King gave it his unequivocal endorsement saying if he had thought it up at the time, he would have used it.It's rare to find a creature-feature that actually delivers when it comes to fear factor, however The Mist is a wonderful throwback to those movies that scared the jeepers out of us as kids, and had us sleeping with the lights on, and a chair propped up against the closet door.Frank Darabont can safely add yet another successful Stephen King adaptation to his list, even though it's safe to say there won't be any Oscar nominations headed his way over this.
This movie deserves two stars (rather than just one) because of three reasons: first, there are two or three jokes in the dialogues that are obviously funny by intention; second, the makers came close to a strong ending before falling back into the cheap pseudo-moralistic vein of their narrative; third and most of all, the screenplay which certainly is one of the worst I ever saw, manages to be so messed up that I almost enjoyed myself (sadly, though, in the second half of the movie get's lightly better so that it isn't even funny anymore).Obviously, the idea was to develop a kind of drama among the people in the supermarket.
Now, I've always liked horror movies and I very much like Stephen King's creation, I haven't read the Mist book, but the movie is a bad adaption of it for sure.The story is a mix of Silent Hill, Half-Life and Lord of the Flies which doesn't have to be a bad thing, but the movie is just so predictable, yes even the beloved ending, I mean how didn't someone see that.The choices characters make in the movie are mostly stupid and just make the watchers angry by looking at the arrogant roads characters take to solve problems and the time to figure out obvious.
The performance of Marcia Gay Harden is awesome in the role of an insane woman that believes is in contact with God. The special effects are also great, and I really recommend this movie for viewers that accept stories without happy end.
Maybe I just haven't been into the whole 50s/60s horror genre, but I fail to see what makes this movie great, apart from the ending, which I thought was pretty good.In my opinion, this movie lacked any real sense of danger; I never felt chilled, or scared.
But to be perfectly honest, this looked more like a B-movie (script, plot, editing, settings) than what I expected after Shawshank Redemption and The Green Mile - which I both enjoyed immensely.In fact, I was bored for most of the film.
Enter "The Mist" and I leave the theater saying to myself "this is why I go see movies".Frank Darabont should be the only one adapting Steven King novels and short stories...period.
To which I thought, "Had you actually read the novella, clod, you'd know that King ended on an (almost) upbeat note." With home entertainment fast becoming the industry standard, I guess the expectation of a tactful audience is beyond reason anymore.Despite the running commentary, I was able to see the treasure most of the room missed out on.
Other commenters, such as the featured 23 November 2007, have already discussed the good acting, dialog, editing, and tension buildup of what promises to be a solid and actually thoughtful B-movie.However, Frank Darabont's oh-so-stylishly nihilistic ending destroys the movie, a big alien-bug foot (or Monty Python Foot?) crunching the story.
From there-on there's a struggle on the fronts of, simply, what to do: Jane just wants to know what they're up against, how to get to the cars, how to get the hell out; Andre Braugher's character, a lawyer, might be the most rational, thinks it's poppycock that anything is out there even after the encounter some of the men have with the tentacled creature at the loading dock; and Marcia Gay Harding, in one of the great examples of playing a one-note character so right, is a hardcore bible-thumper who riles up those inside of the supermarket to realize that the end of the world is coming ala Revelations, and that she- following not getting killed while standing still by one of the alien-bugs- is the wrath of God. It's the first time in a while have I seen an audience yell and cringe and laugh at how each major character meets their fate, no matter what the approach.If it isn't quite Night of the Living Dead classic-status, it might be expected- hence the comparison to sci-fi channel movie-of-the-week status, in small part.
Mrs. Carmody (in an over the top but excellent performance by Marcia Gay Harden) as the religious fanatic is quite effective, and the way she draws followers to her as things start spiraling out of control is utterly terrifying because it is likely the way many people would react in such circumstances.The acting for the most part was pretty good, but there were times when I felt as if the actors were forcing it.
I really hate giving bad reviews about anything, especially movies, but I just cannot believe that this movie was produced from a Stephen King novella.If this movie has stayed faithful to Stephen King's prose then all I can say is that Mr King must have had a brainstorm when writing it.The plot was wafer thin, the acting no more than mediocre, though some of those taking part are well established actors, even though they may not all be household names, and the direction was pathetic.What took place in the store I feel was absolutely nonsensical and, even if people were facing a peril such as this I am darned sure they would not act and react like they did in this movie.The film was little more than blood and gore and I get more scared when I look at myself in the mirror.What happened in the final scenes were just unbelievable and I am convinced that anyone in this situation would never do what was done.It is such a pity because I do like Stephen King, but this was definitely not his best offering, more like his worst.If it were possible to give a zero rating for this movie I would have been sorely tempted to do so.Lets hope that this movie is included on the Golden Raspberry Awards nominations list as this the only award it is likely to get..