The Mist

I've been eagerly awaiting the film adaptation of Stephen King's The Mist for some time. Since I first read the story, probably 15 years ago, I wanted to see this story on the big screen. I found the novella to be a perfect Night of the Living Dead-style monster-siege story with an ever-escalating threat from both the bugaboos and the survivors turning on one another. More than any of King's other work, it seemed like a no-lose proposition to make it into a movie. And, so, now that the movie's finally happening, I'm excited to see the trailer but find my reactions to it are (perhaps unfairly) burdened with high expectations.

Reactions I just can't keep to myself, apparently.



Anyway, judging from the trailer, it's shocking to me how relevant the religious conflict in the story could be. With all the Left Behind bullshit and the phenomenon of ardent Christians feeling ever more embattled by our increasingly permissive and secular culture, this aspect of the movie looks to be the best part. Who can say if the movie will pull it off as well as the trailer does, but it looks like the actress portraying the zealot is playing the character as more than just a caricature of an evangelical, more subdued than I'd imagined while reading the source material and, interestingly, motivated as much by fear of her God as fealty. This pleases me as her gathering a congregation within the supermarket always seemed to be the trickiest part of the story, in terms of translating it to the big screen, and if they pull it off, I can probably forgive a lot of other problems with the film.

Hey, speaking of problems, here's a doozy: I count three mentions of the titular Mist in the trailer, and every time someone says the word Mist, it sounds like they're saying it italicized and capitalized. The trailer is about 2 and 1/2 minutes long, and that they couldn't avoid three annoying and import-laden mentions of The Mist would seem to indicate that these Mist takes are pretty heavily ladeled throughout the film. Indeed, if I've done my math right, three Mists over 2.5 minutes equates to about 108 over 90 minutes. I hope my math is wrong.

I don't want to beat up on a trailer too much, so here's hoping that it all works out in the end... for the sake of my 14 year old self, if nothing else.