I really, really wanted to come away from this having loved it. Some parts I did, but others…
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Okay, the good:
The acting was uniformly great. Thomas Jane gets better with every film, and he really shined in a role that doesn’t offer the usual leading man heroics that these roles usually provide (especially in horror pictures). And the digital photography was excellent – was this Darabont’s first time shooting like this? – like Zodiac, I think that the slightly bland look worked in favor of the story. I also loved the second two creature attack set pieces (inside the market and at the pharmacy)

The not so good:
If I remember correctly, the page-to-movie minute ratio is about 1:1, and even with Darabont’s tacked on ending (more on that later) this picture should have been about 20 minutes shorter. Particularly after the group returns from the pharmacy; Darabont allows the pace to really go slack there at the exact moment in should have shifted to 5th gear straight through to the end. There was also way too much of an emphasis on Mrs. Carmody – after the 12th time the movie has to come to a halt to allow for one of her moments of religious mania, she goes from an annoying character to just plain annoying.
And with the money they saved on film stock, couldn’t the effects budget have been boosted a bit? I like the Sam Arkoff spirit of the bug attack within the market, but the first creature attack in the loading dock is strictly Sci-Fi Channel Original stuff

The really bad:
Stop explaining everything! I don’t know how big a role Project Arrowhead played in the story (if any) but I really, really didn’t need the origin of the mist explained in such an unexciting, rote way. And what a hateful, hateful ending. I can already tell that criticizing this ending will bring out the “Oh, so you only like happy endings, huh?” reaction, but let me point out several places where it should have ended:

1. As the Jane’s car leaves the parking lot. (“So long! Enjoy all that dog food!”)
2. The car just disappearing into the mist on the road after leaving his webbed-in house
3. Right after the huge whatever passes over the highway.

And, if you absolutely, positively need to have some “meaningful” downer of an ending, have Jane close the car door and walk into the mist while still yelling and crying. What comes after that is the most cynical, f*** you, Charlie ending that I’ve seen in a long time. It would have been one thing if this had been King’s ending and Darabont had been stuck with it, but to have made it up from whole cloth? No sale.

And if I really wanted to be picky, I'd ask why this small down market had several hundred massive bags of dog food.

Where'd you get the notion it was shot digitally**? First I've heard it, it didn't look it to me when *projected* digitally (fairly grainy in the lower registers), and IMDB doesn't think so, either. Not that they're capable of screwing up or anything. ;)

Darabont shot an episode of "The Shield" that got him jazzed up to shoot this in a 'run & gun' style, but, again according to IMDB, that's film too.

**Skimmed this too quickly, maybe?

If I'm wrong I'll happily eat my words :lol:. From the start the colors looked wrong for film - but I was sure during the scene where Jane first goes back to the loading bay and turns off the generator. As soon as he shut it down and the lights went off, the screen was filled with video grain.

If that scene was shot on 35mm, the grain was the best special effect in the whole movie.


*Just read your Wiki link and it looks like you're right - though I do wonder why you would go to the trouble of shooting on film only to have it look like you were shooting on tape (or directly to a drive). I still have the suspicions about several scenes, though...

You definitely saw it projected on film?

I thought THE MIST was one of the best monster movies I've seen in years. It's nearly impossible to scare me, but I thought it was very intense, extraordinarily well acted and well adapted, even if it did go a bit slack for a while.

However, I really didn't care for the "wailing woman" bit on the music score, towards the end, at all. I thought that it was awful and mixed too loud, and the scenes would play much better with just the music, without any singing.

But man oh man, that climax. Kinda hits ya in the ying yang, don't it? My son just about screamed, and people are going to be discussing that one for some time.

Thanks to the posts here at the forum, I was intrigued enough to go see this today with my wife. I also have to say that, with the warning ahead of time about the ending, I probably enjoyed it more than I would have without the foreknowledge.


And this is a big spoiler right ...





To me, the ending seemed to be one where the studio said, "We HAVE to have a happy ending." Darabont said, "No, I don't want that." They then went back and forth until they reached this compromise - one where humanity wins (the happy ending) but the hero doesn't (the downer one).

Saying all that, when the difference between happy and downer is a fluke of an occurance that has no set-up in the rest of the picture, it just reads like the director either hated his characters or felt his audience would only respect it if he tried to throw them a curve of some sort.

Before that, however, I enjoyed what I saw - although there were times when Darabont should have invested in a tripod. The shaky-camera effect was brief, thankfully; yet it didn't seem natural to the movie at all and kept taking me out of it when it was used.

The main thing for me was I kept thinking two things in the movie: First, "Hey, isn't that a young Christopher Lambert?" whenever Thomas Jane turned up. :lol: Second, "This movie would be so much more interesting if Mrs. Carmody wasn't here." Although she comes from the original story, it reeked of a cliche religious fanatic through-and-through and I was ready for her to take a walk long before she finally did so. (And I wasn't alone in that view - the nearly-full audience in the theater with me applauded her demise when it occurred, not to mention some scattered laughter.) I mean, the conflict between people in the store could have easily been done another way, while the number that join her never ran true, especially when people started dying.

Oh, and it seemed forever for people to get moving when others were attacked. It made sense the first time, and in real life perhaps that would be the case 99% of the time, but in the movies it makes everyone look a tad thick in the head.

But don't get me wrong here - I did enjoy it for at least being a MONSTER movie instead of another psychological slash-em-up. But that can't stop me from wondering if it could have been better.

Andrew, thanks a whole lot for starting this thread. I figure this is the kind of film that will get Mobians wanting to quickly read comments about the ending and to share their thoughts right away. And I really believe that people should be allowed to go into The Mist fairly cold (no pun intended). A story dealing so intensely with the effect of faith and hope in the wake of fear is a bit sabotaged if you know the outcome.

I'll share more later this weekend, perhaps after another viewing. But I thought people would like to read this interview with Frank Darabont at AICN where he explains that his ending had been in his mind for about 10 years.

Yes, the movie really could have used the kind of CGI post-production time of a Pirates Of The Carribean film, but then it would not have been Darabont's Mist.

I've read that the budget was something like $17 million. Could this be true?

:o ! "looks out the window for flocks of flying pigs"

You know, there is something so strangely “right” about Bob Weinstein giving his unwavering support to a filmmaker who is trying desperately to change the ending of a much loved story in favor his own cynical, self-important take. I think Darabont’s choice is getting to me because I did enjoy so much of the film (probably more than my first post makes it seem) only to have the final 10 minutes spoil the whole experience.

And Domenick – thanks for reminding me about that wailing woman! That music belongs on the soundtrack of a terrorist drama while the camera lingers over the bodies over the victims of a suicide bomber, not at the end of a horror film. Has Spielberg noticed any Munich music missing?

HA! I said that a few years ago the first time I saw Jane in DEEP BLUE SEA.

I took in THE MIST this afternoon and enjoyed it quite a bit. I do agree that there is a pacing issue and maybe one too many religious zealot speeches. But I have to say those attack scenes are fantastic. The one in the pharmacy features one of the grossest things I have seen in years with the guy erupting in spiders (CHARLOTTE'S WEB scarred me as a child).

As for the ending, I think Darabont was trying to do his NOTLD punch to the gut. I applaud him for the nerve to kill a kid, but found it terribly depressing. I'm shocked he didn't have Andre Braugher on one of the rescue vehicles, going, "Nah, nah, nah, nah!" However, I will say I like the idea of the logical group still losing out at the end.

EDIT: I'm surprised at the beating the film is taking at the box office (didn't crack the top 5 on Wednesday, at no. 10 yesterday!). Looks like a terrible time to release it.

The pundits have already declared THE MIST dead at the boxoffice. It's not going to leave much of a vapor trail, so its low cost may be a good thing, at least for the beancounters.

Gotta ask: Does Stephen King adaptations matter anymore? Is that well, which he always replenishes with a new book, running dry? Was 1408 a fluke or a hit based on other factors besides his name? Even he says he doesn't pay much attention to the films anymore. (I do plan on seeing THE MIST, but have to say that Darabont's SHAWSHANK and THE GREEN MILE, seemingly gold standards in King-dom, did little for me.)

Blame the Weinsteins, who apparently learned nothing from the GRINDHOUSE experience. Who the heck releases a horror film on Thanksgiving weekend? Or an exploitation double bill on Easter?
I don't know what's going on over there, but they've got to seriously take a look at their priorities, imo.

Am I alone in loving Thomas Jane's line about how the movie studio he's working for will probably replace his Drew Struzan Dark Tower poster with a bad photoshop generated poster?

The cameo appearance of Struzan's posters for Pan's Labyrinth and Carpenter's The Thing (along with another one that I've forgotten) was fun too.

I just thought of a little question: when Mrs. Carmody says, "My life for you," was that line in King's "The Mist" or was it borrowed from The Stand. Wasn't the Trashcan Man always saying "My life for you" in The Stand?

Oh please. Whenever a movie bombs, it's always because it was the wrong weekend to release it. Gimme a break. I think the movie bombed because the majority of people are simply not interested in it. I know practically no one who has expressed any interest in seeing this film, and I have a lot of film-buff friends, quite a few of of them genre enthusiasts. I love horror films and read this novella/story years ago when I was reading all Stephen King, and I still had to work up the interest to go see it today - and that was only because a friend who works at Genius had free tickets and he asked me to go. Honestly, the trailer did nothing for me (CGI monsters and stock-characters yapping away) and I was never a big fan of the story to begin with, but I decided to go in with an open mind and give it a chance. Personally, I think King is best when he doesn't deal with supernatural or preposterous monster situations. I prefer the book and movie versions of things like CUJO, DOLORES CLAIBORNE, CARRIE, and SHAWSHANK over giant bugs and tentacles coming through a dimesion-warp. Plus, this stuff has been done to death since the story was written, and seeing a modern adaptation of this particular story done today makes all the banality and cliches of it even more evident (gotta leave the store to get bullets out of a car, gotta leave the store to get medicine for the burn victim, gotta leave the store to save my babysitter, etc.). This story was always a thinly-veiled re-vamp of NOTLD, but I can believe reanimated corpses more than giant dinosaurs coming through a dimension doorway to eat mankind. Maybe if THE MIST had been made into a film over 20 years ago, suspension of disbelief could ave worked better and it could have some punch, but today with all those fake CGI creatures, it just seems like a variation on THE LANGOLIERS or some other awful King adaptation.

Someone mentioned the spare use of the shaky-cam. What are you talking about? The whole film was shaky-cam. Practically every shot was hand-held and moving back-and-forth. That's not to mention the numerous zoom in-and-outs (Franco anyone?) and the even more annoying use of pull-focus. Characters did not act rationally. In the pharmacy, as soon as the spiders come out, you should turn and run. Nope, these idiots just stand there screaming and watching as one of them tries to shoot every spider in there. The stock-characters were all pretty much throwaways - it was weird to see Truman Capote in this thing, though. Frances Sternhagen is always a pleasure, but she has little to do (but does deliver the best moment in the film with a can of peas).

THE ENDING - oh, what a dumb false and artificial conclusion. I love downer endings. I thought the similar-idea suicidal ending of "OPEN WATER" was brilliant and haunting. But here, it just makes no sense that these characters would commit suicide this way. People want to survive by any means possible, and getting out of the car and walking for 5 more minutes and hopefully get away to see if the end of the mist may be just over the hill makes sense. This artficial suicide set-up for a "twist" (which could be seen a mile away once he pulls out the gun) is so phony and dumb that I felt like I was being condescended to. If I believed the whole scenario, maybe there would have been some punch to it. As it is, it's fake and artificial and I didn't buy it for an instant. I would also like to reiterate as others have said how bad the wailing woman sounds on the soundtrack at the end are, though. Sheesh.

Even though I thought the movie was pretty bad, it wasn't that painful overall and I felt the pacing was OK considering its bloated running time. So there are worse King movies out there, which isn't saying that much when you think of things like LANGOLIERS.

Just got back from seeing THE MIST - wanted to catch it before temptation got too much and started reading comments about it.

It certainly ranks among the best and most faithful adaptations of King's works that's on screen so far... if it doesn't catch fire at the box office, it'll be discovered when it goes to DVD.

It also functions as a pretty good allegory as to the state of the country right now - not that it was King's intention when he wrote the novella, but it sure is prescient in the same way that some of Rod Serling's TZ episodes were in the dealings of human nature (THE SHELTER is probably the closest that comes to mind.) I'm fairly certain that Darabont did take in account The National Nightmare of the past eight years and weighted things to that end (the demise of Norm the Bagboy in particular).

Seen in that light, the ending that Darabont went with makes perfect sense.

I also didn't feel the movie was too long or have any qualms with the effects.
If this had been made in the mid '80's along the lines of EVIL DEAD II or PHANTASM II, they'd had proclaimed it a classic and be scheduled for a remake now.

I think it IS a classic - it'll certainly be held in higher regard in later years.
It's no accident that a poster of THE THING is there :D

I do agree about the wailing woman on the score at the end (the Dead Can Dance song) - I think a moratorium should be in effect... No More Wailing Women In Movie Scores For The Next 10 Years.

Actually, Darabont's digressive dialogue musings here tend to tilt pretty unsubtly in that direction.

Just got back from seeing THE MIST about twenty minutes ago.

This is one of the rare instances lately where a story or book I've loved for years has seen translation to the big screen. I haven't been much of a reader for the last couple of decades, but in my teenage years I gobbled up many a novel or short story collection, and THE MIST has remained my favorite work from Stephen King since I first acquired the SKELETON CREW collection back in Middle School.

It's a curse and a blessing to be so intimately familiar with the source material for a film such as this. On the one hand, if the movie doesn't exactly match the expectations for certain characters and setpieces that you've created in your mind for years then it is inevitably disappointing. And yet it can be a thrilling experience to see a filmmaker bring a fresh new approach to the material that re-invigorates your stubbornly held preconceptions of how the original source should be brought to the big screen.

I've been disappointed soooo many times in the past, that I honestly believe that one of the reasons I hardly take in a book anymore is that I will inevitably be horribly conflicted by the eventual motion picture version. And since I've always been first and foremost a movie junkie, I've let the written word in my life dwindle to practically nothing. It's a shame really...but I'm still having nightmares about that JAMES AND THE GIANT PEACH movie...I loved Dahl's prose to death, and I felt violated watching that mangled musical mess.

Perhaps I take things too close to heart?

Anyway, to THE MIST...

I was so reluctant to see this, and yet with Frank Darabont handling the writing and directing, I knew this stood an above average chance of being both a faithful adaptation of the novella and a standout movie on its own terms. And for the most part, I think Darabont and Co have succeeded here in retaining the novel's claustrophobic essence that highlights the societal breakdown that rapidly occurs within the confines of the supermarket.

Darabont has retained all of the important scenes and characters from the original story and has eliminated and added material in just the right places. The removal of a fumbled tryst between the David and Amanda characters was a wise choice as it would have seemed too sudden and out of character in the film without the story's psychological explanations behind the sudden sexual encounter. Also, the addition of an extra military officer adds some new, though thankfully terse, information about the Arrowhead military project's culpability, and his eventual fate brings a stunning amount of gravity to the threat posed by Mrs. Carmody's influence over many of the trapped shoppers.

In addition, the film has been cast to a T. Thomas Jane is the perfect David Drayton...resilient, strong, likeable, and genuinely interesting. Andre Braugher brings a steely and sarcastic edge to his short-lived role of neighbor Norton which contrasts nicely with Jane's straight-arrow approach. Reliable character actors Frances Sternhagen, William Sadler, Jeffrey DeMunn all contribute teriffic moments that help elucidate the growing tensions and shifting loyalties amongst the beseiged. My favorite amongst this stellar group would have to be Toby Jones who brings to life my personal favorite character, the surprisingly resourceful clerk , Ollie. Jones quickly becomes one of the film's bedrock characters, remaining calm and supportive during the many attack sequences, and in the end, is one of the few genuine heroes of the story. Jones underplays this all wonderfully and the audience I saw the film with was with him all the way.

As for the techinical side of things, the set design perfectly captures that second-rate supermarket look, while the sound design and mist FX are kept spare and frighteningly well realized. I also greatly appreciated Darabont's instinct to keep the camera moving (though gratefully not shaking erratically) through most of the film, which lends it an urgency his GREEN MILE and SHAWSHANK REDEMPTION asthetics would not have been able to deliver. His time on THE SHIELD seems to have had some excellent dividends for his directorial style. Also, Darabont's decision to leave many key suspense and action moments without a score was a brilliant choice that keeps the audience off balance and attuned to every little snap, growl, or distant flutter. I wish more filmmakers would take this route when spending time in the modern fear chambers of today's horror cinema.

As to the creature effects, I was a little less than impressed with the initial tentacle attack in the loading dock. The effects here seemed unfinished and while the sequence was edited extremely well, somehow the tentacle activity seemed phony and out of sync with the background and foreground action with the performers. Still the actual design of the tentacles, as well as the various birds, bugs, spiders, and behemoths seen later in the film are all spectacular and do a vivid job of realizing the creatures as both something familiar and horribly unimaginable. In particular, the bird and and bug attack inside the market is well animated and contains some gruesome additions by Darabont that give even the smallest MIST denizens a lethality previously unexplored in the novella.

Now there are some problems however...and one of them almost keeps me from recommending the movie, which I would have thought unthinkable going into the last 15 minutes of the picture. But more on that in a minute.

The character of Mrs. Carmody has always been a problematic one, even in the original story as she represents a theatrical and often hysterical leader of a growing cult of folks inside the market who believe that The Mist and its inhabitants are the coming of the Apocalypse from which only God can save them. On the page, Mrs. Carmody comes off right from the start as a borderline cartoon loony who no one in their right mind would ever pay attention to. Of course as things continue to go horribly wrong in the market, more and more desperate folks turn to her for guidance which is one of the strongest themes of the King story...when all of our comforts and beliefs are shaken, how do we react and how far are we willing to go to hold on to our lives? Inevitably the Carmody character works in the story since the outrageous creatures and gruesome attacks seem to catch up to Carmody's religious zeal to the point where she actually begins to seem rational to those who cannot deal with the supernatural terrors waiting at their doorstep.

Darabont however has only a two-hour runtime, and despite having a perfect actress in the role (the great Marcia Gay Harden), he is unable to conquer the Carmody problem entirely, though as in the story, the character becomes more effective as her flock increases in both members and devotion. Mrs. Carmody is seen too often (and too early) as an overly eccentric bible-thumper and the film comes to a halt far too often so we can see her mumbling her way through bible passages and spouting insults at those who mock her. I wish Darabont had found a way to soften the character at the beginning and make her descent into godly fervor more gradual.

Still, this character issue is nothing compared to the already-much-debated ending to the film which follows the conclusion to the original story to a point then adds a brutal and unflinching resolution which no one can accuse of a soft-sell cop-out.

In the original story, things are left pretty much up in the air. We have our core group of survivors but they are stranded at a hotel restaurant with no discernible plan and no abatement in the mist or its monsters. It's a bleak ending but not without a ray of hope.

Darabont avoids the hotel stop and instead places our characters at a crossroads where their vehicle has run out of gas and there is seemingly no hope left for them to survive. After silently examining their options, our hero David Drayton takes the remaining bullets and ends the lives of his friends and his son and intends to take his own life by simply walking out into the mist and letting whatever is out there have their meal.

Instead, its a case of horrible timing as the Army suddenly rolls through, and the mist miraculously clears and we are treated to sights of surivivors riding by the shell-shocked Drayton as he collapses into a pile of agonized screams as he realizes he has ended the lives of his son and co-survivors only a few moments too soon.

First off I have to give Darabont a lot of credit for not finding an obvious Hollywood solution to this story and carrying his adaptation to an even more hopeless and uncertain future than even King had envisioned. Most filmmakers succumb to safe ground in situations like this, even to the detriment of their material (Spielberg's final moments in the WAR OF THE WORLDS remake anyone?) and I'm relieved to see that Darabont had a vision that he wanted to bring out with this conclusion and that Dimension stood by him is admirable.

In the end though, I sincerely feel that Darabont went too far with this ending and has unfortunately added a hateful and spiteful conclusion to a film that didn't earn it. Instead of a gripping "holy shit they are screwed!" or "damn, how the hell are they gonna gonna get out of this" reaction that I was hoping for, I was left feeling confused and horribly depressed. It would be like having the best rollercoaster ride of your life, then just as you were about to push back the safety bar and step up on to the landing, someone comes along and dumps a load of steaming dogshit on your head. Not that I am saying that has happened to me, but I feel the comparison is valid.

Seeing the Drayton character seemingly punished for his actions, however understandable at the time, adds an ugly and bitter aftertaste that I simply cannot shake. While I am all for open-ended or downbeat endings, (see John Carpenter's THE THING for the perfect example of this) this final act in Frank Darabont's THE MIST comes off as a cheap sucker-punch and wounds this otherwise superb horror film to such a degree that I doubt I will have any desire to watch it again in the near future. I know I will, since I am sure the DVD will have many special features which will demand my attention, but I'm not looking forward to it.

In the end, I don't know how I can recommend THE MIST since I feel so negatively about the film's conclusion. I think any serious horror addict should see the top-notch work on display for much of the two-hour runtime, and I would hate to see anyone pass up such a rare chance to see a monster move where the creatures are not only original and terrifying but are actually second-bananas to the human drama on display between the warring denizens of the supermarket.

With such wonderful images as a bug that tenderly considers whether to sting a terrified Mrs. Carmody, the curiously familiar paintings on display in David Drayton's studio, or the eerily beatiful shot of a monstrous brontosaurus sized creature stradding the heroes SUV and the upper echeleons of the sky above them, I would have to say "yes" to THE MIST. When something this well-made comes along that isn't a torture-filled freakshow or a second-rate remake, I cannot in good conscience tell anyone to avoid it.

And yet, I would say I am heartbroken that the final minutes seem to go out of their way to sabotage such an A-List effort from all involved.

Damn.

I thought it was ok, myself.

So checklist of "controversies", problem spots and the total-awesome:

-Ohmigod ohmigod. That beautiful "Dark Tower" painting got wet-tree smacked! Drew Struzan can literally do one of those posters overnight, but the opening moments of the storm damaging David's studio probably caused the most panic and agony for me.

-The Dead Can Dance track at the end is too ponderous, and doesn't jibe with the grab & go feel of the rest of the film. Given the sparse score elsewhere, the sudden tide of darkwave abstract moaning seemed to startle a large chunk of the audience into giggles. Several people were imitating Thomas Jane's anguished screams during the credits, so maybe it wasn't the music. I don't think it was that silly, but it wasn't the Elegy for All Hope that Darabont seemed to want.

-Name-checks for Stephen King's radio stations WZON and WKIT?: nerds only need apply.

-The thing about creature effects is: they're always going to look like special effects of one kind or another. You know it's not real, you probably know how they did it, and if you don't, you'll learn about it on a boring DVD featurette. Whether state of the art or old skool rubber-bat-on-string, it's always just a matter of how well you sell it, or how charming the effect is on its own. The beasties in THE MIST never look like anything but CGI and KNB puppets. But. The drama is pitched so realistically, the suspense scenes are so tense, the action sequences are so small-scale and filled with real world detail, that I buy it. When the flaming mop-head flies off the handle, and David has to beat a burning hell-dactyl to death with it, I'm in the moment with the monsters. And yet, here's the prime spot where no film adaptation of monster-attack fiction can ever best the camera in your reader's brain. No matter how cool the Wrightson creature designs are, they're not as real as the ones in your head. That said: I'd pictured King's monsters as sicker, paler and more unhealthy-looking, but those were still some cool monsters. I particularly dig the skull-faced spiders. The only let-down was the indescribable whale-insectoid behemoth that crosses the road near the end. Because some things just can't be put on film.

-Now, there's this faction complaining that the film overextends the explanation for Why This Is Happening!, pretty plainly assigning blame to the rumored Arrowhead Project mentioned in the novella. But as it's the only forthcoming explanation King offers, it's always been the fan assumption that it's correct. So King having long ago declared "The Mist" as a Dark Tower-tangential story, I hope I wasn't the only one nerdgasming when Darabont's script clearly describes the military research opening a Thinny. This is biggest, bestest Dark Tower shout-out/ connection in a King screen adaptation yet, right? There's more DT stuff in the barely-related MIST than in the HEARTS IN ATLANTIS, which managed (er... well, tried) to purge all traces of Tower mythos from the directly-connected plot of "Low Men in Yellow Coats" from which it was sort-of adapted. I was half-expecting to see six-packs of Nozz-a-La cola on the store shelves.

-However, if the lobster-things in "The Mist" are the same as the Lobstrosities that attack Roland on the beach in "Drawing of the Three", are they really that damned big?

-Still doesn't feel like Maine (and c'mon, make the cast do the accent, man!). And while I think Darabont grasps the larger picture of King's world, he's never had a handle on either King's personal themes and concerns, or the rarified ability to capture the grotty, earthy feel of the prose. SHAWSHANK and GREEN MILE are too burnished and stately, and THE MIST is closer but still not sweaty, salty-tongued or physical enough. The only King adaptations that have the elusive Feel are the nigh-perfect DOLORES CLAIBORNE, the too-sweet STAND BY ME, and the incredible GRAVEYARD SHIFT. GRAVEYARD SHIFT is er... well, it is what it is, but it looks and feels like the heat, grime and fluid from King's word processor made celluloid, like nothin' else. Nonetheless, THE MIST is most-of-the-way to a great adaptation and Darabont seems to "get it" more than any other filmmaker, and it's a pleasure to have a tasteful director and excellent writer trying so hard to make films faithful to King's vision. I don't know why Mick Garris keeps plugging away at the King oeuvre, because he's utterly ill-equipped for the job. Darabont knows it's the characters, not the warmed-over genre scenarios that make the stories pulse with ruddy life. Not anonymous teenagers in peril, but little kids, old people, hicks, middle-aged writers and blue-collar reg'ler folks. That's who lives in Stephen King country, a phone-book size populace, in lovingly detailed Dickensian array. The trick that makes "The Mist" tick is that it plays deadly-serious with it's Lovecraft-Crawlies Attack Supermarket story.

-I so want an Arrowhead Project jacket patch.

-The ending of the novella always leaves me depressed for a day. The ending of the film seems uncommonly mean and hard-hearted... but I'm not so sure. It serves as a button to Darabont's take on the story. Surely it will take some chewing-over, but here's the gist of it. The novella becomes a fascinating siege drama about the erosion of civility when the state apparatus goes to crapsville. Not just how society implodes when the illusion of safety is shattered - though it does that, too - but how everything important is thrown into sharp relief. How primal impulse, good and not-so-good, take charge. The need to tend this wound, to protect this baby, to self-preserve, to fill this stomach, to couple with another body, and to save your sanity by believing in something-anything: that's what takes the joystick when the Superflu spreads, the cellphone crazies attack, you're trapped in the Overlook or a Cujo corners you in your car. That's something which greatly interests Stephen King. In that "The Mist", it's Necessary and Right for David Drayton to hook up with Amanda Dunfries. David and Amanda need each other in that moment, and it gives them some kind of affirmation of life, but he's also accepting on some level that his wife is dead and gone. The open-ending of King's story is perfect - is it hopeful or hopeless? does it emphasize that all hope is delusion? if so, is that all we got, or is that grim and laughable?

Darabont's THE MIST is either more cynical or simpler or just tauter than the novella, depending on you you feel about such things, and he crystallizes the conflicts that are important to him by emphasizing Mrs. Carmody's religious fervor seizing the rattled crowd in the supermarket. This THE MIST can't depict the uncomfortable weird-zone internal conflict of the novella. There's no way for Marita Covarrubias and The Punisher to get cuddly. There's no way to properly show Drayton's winnowing hope that his wife is alive, because it's all internal. Darabont's MIST keeps Drayton alive, fighting, and capable because he's fueled by hope that if he keeps meeting obstacles as they come, maintains his moral center, stays practical, and keeps his wits, he'll survive moment to moment. Everyone who dies or devolves does not do these things; Norton deludes himself immediately, the biker dies while trying to cowboy up, and the throngs give in not to faith but to fear of wrath. It's when David Drayton allows himself to give up hope - which is, er, understandable given the circumstances - that he finally fails. That's why Darabont invents the scene where Drayton returns home and finds his wife's body, but King did not. Because I think, sap who made THE SHAWSHANK REDEMPTION that he is, Frank Darabont believes hope against hope is a fine, redeeming quality. His MIST reflects it, and though the protagonist's hope fails in the end, he is cosmically punished by the screenwriter, who rewards the woman who would not give up hope and drove home to save her children.

They may share a low opinion of how human beings behave when it hits the fan, but Stephen King writes observation of How People Are, while Frank Darabont builds moral tales.

Consider also these bookends: Darabont begins by demolishing David Drayton's beautiful art, with the force of nature, which Drayton might've protected if he'd just gotten it out of the way of the treebranch. The film closes with Drayton trying to insure his dearest creation will not fall victim to the violence of supernatural forces, but decides more destruction is not the answer.

I haven't seen The Mist, so I have no opinions either way; but it's fun to compare the detailed, impassioned write-ups here (both the elaborate details of the pros and angry disappointment of the cons) with the mainstream reviews the film's been getting (totally dismissive, "stupid characters, ridiculously stagey dialogue... if you like campy bug movies I guess this is up your alley" in essence).

It's like there are two entirely different films called "The Mist" playing in theatres at the same time, and it's a 50/50 chance which one people are going to see when they walk in.

Is this the first time in Mobius history that my fellows are calling for a kinder, gentler ending? I can see the DVD: "Added feature: Warmer, fuzzier alternate ending." :)

I like to think they get that big when they enter into our world. :) I dug the Dark Tower nods as well. As for myself, I'd been waiting for years for this, and I enjoyed it. If anyone's heard it, the 3-D audio version of the book was like a dry-run for the movie. I haven't read the story in years, but I went into the film wondering if they were going to mention the Arrowhead project as being the reason for the whole thing, so it must have been a part of the story from the start. I thought the ending was pretty grim, and would have liked it if the army had not shown up, and he had just went walking into the mist. Or even the entire group. That said, I liked that the ending was grim, and the film was pretty smart overall. The people in it react like I think people in the situation would react. I often heard characters saying things I was thinking, which doesn't happen much. As we were leaving, my wife said, "this is a horror movie for folks who don't like dumb horror movies," and I agree. If they all just went out into the mist together and just faded away into it, I think that would have been better, but it wouldn't fit what had happened before. Frank had no other option with his son, he made him a promise that the monsters wouldn't get him. The only way to keep the promise, was for him to kill his son. And considering Mrs. Carmody's thoughts, I found it interesting that he killed his son, and the mist went away.

And that is the biggest problem with the ending of the film. The characters suddenly become puppet siphons for a screenwriter instead of the rational characters they were for the majority of the film. Does Darabont really expect an audience to believe that all four of these smart resilient adults, who have fought off the bible-thumping Jim Jones kool-aid drinking mentality and done everything they can to survive for a couple of days, are going to sit in the car calmly for one minute and decide to blow all their brains out easily and without a word of discussion or debate? There aren't even any monsters attacking the car or them at that point. It goes against everything these characters are about and is a cheap screenwriting tactic to shoehorn a twist into the end, downbeat or not. Darabont may be trying to create a moral tale, but the only moral to this story is that Darabont tried too hard to be clever instead of following through with logic and being true to his characters. If these characters were that dumb to blow out their brains, then they weren't worth watching for two hours to begin with. Even though I thought the rest of the movie was simply "OK" at best, at least it played true to its characters and themes. The ending doesn't play true to its characters or the audience who has sat there for two hours investing in them. It's a cheap screenwriting cheat. King's original ending would have felt a lot more downbeat because at least it would be believable and true to the characters.

I don't think it is so much that we need a warmer, fuzzier ending, but rather a more logical one. As mentioned earlier here, to have survived so long only to commit suicide when the gas runs out of the car (and, really, wouldn't it have been worth the trouble to attempt to keep an eye on the gas in such a situation?) doesn't make a whole lot of sense except to get us to the "devastating ending."

I always have a problem with sound at these things, so I couldn't quite make out the reason why the woman demanded to go out into the mist when it was already established that it was a sure-fire way to die. She had a child at home and worried the child was in trouble. Yet getting yourself killed when there was the possibility of help was on the way? Seemed more foolish than hopeful, yet to have her survive had me thinking in the theater: What was her story and would it have been more interesting than what we got instead? I suspect I probably just misheard something, however.

If there had to be a downer at all, it seems to me the way to do it would be to tone down Carmody and slower build her up until her hysterics near the end have her trying to take the son away and sacrifice him herself. Then the father loses it and - as a way to save his son - convinces the others who follow him throughout the picture that Carmody was working with the devil or was forcing everyone to crack up and should be sacrified instead to save them all.

Then once she was cast out into the parking lot, show the army coming in and defeating the monsters but not so quick as to save her. She dies needlessly due to the frantic, horrible actions of the father. The son runs from him in fear of what he had done and everyone wonders why he couldn't have just waited two more minutes for help to arrive. Thus, the father is left a shattered man for what he has become rather than what we got, which was due to blind bad luck.

Now there's your downer ending.

That WAS Dead Can Dance? While I agree about it's placement, I now feel embarrassed for not recognizing it, doh.

The Tomatometer's clocking THE MIST at 69% Fresh, and amateur reviews seem to be keeping pace with that figure. Whether one bothers to take the film seriously or not seems to depend on how much one likes Stephen King, and whether one is accustomed or open to thinking at all about giant bug movies. Liking the film then seems to actually hinge on how well it agrees with the reviewer's personal view of how the world works. And that's kind of nice. Because I don't expect that Anthony Lane at The New Yorker has the guts - or the capacity - to consider for 15 seconds that a monster movie could possibly be about more than bug attacks. It's not really tooled to play to the broadest possible audience, but people who like a good monster movie is still a pretty big audience.

Now, I love Stephen King. I take Stephen King very seriously. "The Mist" is a fan favorite story, and I've been waiting for an adaptation for 15 years. But I'm iffy about Frank Darabont's storytelling. I like that he wants to do serious, Oscar-worthy, expensive-looking productions of King stories. He's a fan too. His subtle rewrites of the source material don't damage the plot engines, so Darabont's adaptations have the illusion of faithfulness, but invariably re-route the stories' purpose and theme, and fly them into different destinations. Maintaining the spirit of the work being adapted is more important than duplicating every plot point.

THE MIST has the tang of a bleak ending, but it's not really. I don't feel it's completely illogical: Darabont makes the loss of David's wife the flashpoint that makes him give up, and the implication is that the drive into uncertainty has taken longer than depicted on screen. The surviving characters have really exhausted all their options, and are facing the choice between merciful death of their own choosing and certain, more painful, scarier doom. But oh, if only they'd kept the faith a few minutes more, even against rationality, and for no reason but that that's what Darabont thinks people should do. That's how he read "Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption". That's how he read "The Green Mile". With THE MIST he inverts King's story to stroke his own themes. That's okay. It's his movie. But it's a fake-downer ending that actually tells us, in a horror movie way, that it'll all be okay if we hang in there. King's story offers no such comfort, and his ending is sadder and more frightening.

Compare, for example, Lewis Teague's excellent CUJO, which changes the ending of the novel, allowing terrorized little boy Tad Trenton to live. CUJO softens this blow in the plot, but not the ideology of the horror. That make sense? The story is still saying basically the same things about bad things happening to regular, flawed people, even as the ending is made happier.

I'll agree that the film worked really well without a musical bed (for the most part... there was some subtle sweetening in there), which is why the whole requiem wailing bit on the end seemed so jarring... after playing most of the flick pretty low key, all the sudden Darabont was trying to wring every bit of pathos he could, swinging that sledgehammer (and other tortured metaphors)

And it just kept going on... and on... and on...

He overkilled the moment and made it borderline lugubrious, in my book.

But I still haven't figured out whether I think the ending is mean-spirited or in its way a validation of Carmody's belief system.

Odd thing was, during the showing I was at, there were a lot of folks walking out... and always on the heels of Carmody giving good Christians a bad name. Now, I'm by no means friendly with Evangelicals, but I'm still wondering how a regular Christian would have felt during the course of the seeming abuse.

Not so much that they might feel represented by the Carmody character (who was set up as loopy from the start), but how quickly the rest of the Christians fell into her sway.

Now that seems like a dicier approach to the general demographic than a downbeat ending.

What Craig, Frank Darabont got all bathetic and overwrought?!

I think you're right, if that the most interesting thing to mull over the ending is if the gods either literal or the storytelling author-god has demanded a blood sacrifice to end the horror. Because it seems to me that Stephen King often builds stories where that is the case, and sometimes he may find it appalling, but believes that is the price of indulging in a horror story. Witness again, "Cujo" where in a metaphysical/fictional sense, the adults and the world's attempts to assure Tad that there is nothing so bad as Real Monsters in the world has "willed" Cujo into existence, and the boy's life is the cost of that well-intentioned lie. Most grand, the path that leads to the Dark Tower itself, at the center of the King mythos, is strewn with the bodies of Roland's friends, lovers and family: the bad price of losing his moral compass in pursuit of a forbidden goal.

I chose to read the spoilers before seeing the film (I haven't yet), and I have to say what I've been coming up with wasn't too far off. I was expecting the car to make it out of the mist into the safe area, only to have a creature hop out onto the car, forcing the army to blast it.

In any case, Darabont's ending really does seem to be a "what do you do when you have only so much info?" conundrum.

One thing I didn't cover in my previous post was that the idea of the communal suicide was actually something I found quite effective in the ending.

At that point, without fuel, no food, no reasonable means of escape or protection, and having seen the grotesque and often unimaginable deaths of their friends and family, as well as not knowing how far the mist extends into the outside world, I think the suicide option would logically come to the forefront of considerations.

In fact, I think that choice by Darabont was correct. I was shocked and taken aback since it had never been an option I had entertained, but as a filmmaker he did a wonderful job of conveying the hopelessness of the situation. My only wish is that when the car stalled, I would have liked some more dramatic buildup and perhaps some multiple monster attacks to heighten the choice they were about to make.

When we are left with David Drayton alone, having just killed everyone else, Jane's performance here was sublime, and I felt such enormous pity and sympathy for his plight, and when he stepped out into the mist and essentially waited to be attacked, I was surprised how genuinely moved I was by the whole affair.

However, it's this crucial point, the ending goes irredeemably sour for me. Had Drayton been attacked and killed at this point, everything would have been fine, as we the audience would have seen how close they came to being rescued, while our protagonists' suffering would at least be over. Instead we have to witness the universe literally laughing at poor David as the Army rolls by and busloads of survivors (including one woman who exited the supermarket early on as the mist rolled in) drive by as he collapses in anguish.

Perhaps Darabont was making a statement about hope and the utter fickle nature of our lives and how so much of it depends on chance and random circumstance.

Or maybe he just stepped one bit further into the darkness than he needed to.

With apologies to Lisa Gerrard (whose name is misspelled in the end credits of THE MIST) a friend calls that kind of vocal styling "wailing vagina." :) I think I first heard her filmwise in THE INSIDER, then she followed Russell Crowe into GLADIATOR, and after a few more movies with that kind of music on the soundtrack it seemed to become a cliche and was retired, till about now (though this was not a composition original to the film, I guess).

Liked the film, though. This and BEOWULF are two lumps of coal in the holiday stocking, where "uplift" is concerned.

It also makes me wonder if the people left in the supermarket eventually survived. Now that would be the biggest bummer of them all.

I don't see why not... the zealots made their blood sacrifice: the soldier two weeks from heading to Iraq. Ahem... subtle.

Wow, damn. Totally serious here when I say that I didn't even pick up on that.

Lisa Gerrard! The designated wailer on the soundtrack of the remake of SALEM'S LOT, Bob G. snickered, possessively?

It’s a Maine thing, I guess. If that’s how the spiders are up in Hicksville, I don’t even wanna think about how big the dogs are! ;)

”Stephen King presents Mick Garris’ The Mist, a 6 hour mini-series event for television, brought to you by New Doritos Ranch!”

Scary, huh? Well, luckily I don’t live in the other dimension where that’s showing. How often do we get a horror movie so concerned with delivering excellent performances to the same level of how scary its monsters are? Jane, Gamble, and Holden are all perfect, bringing out the best of King’s characters and making them real for me. Norton was the same arrogant jerk from the novella, but Braugher allowed me a tiny bit of empathy towards the guy, giving me an insight into the guy’s pitiful insecurity. This is even more true with Marcia Gay Harden. I loved that bathroom scene! As hateful, dangerous, insane, and downright grating Mrs Carmody is, the scene shows a view into her sadly human heart, filled with insecurities and fears, driven by a delirious desire to do the right thing. Harden also showed a very vulnerable fear at the monster attacks, the bloody rope, and the stabbing of the soldier, far from the usual cliché horror villain heralding the Devil with cackles. However, her performance is so strong that perhaps a little less of her would have been better.

Toby Jones was just wonderful as Ollie. The usual Hollywood decision would be to make this guy the comic relief nerd, with silly or smart-ass answers, jokes about how he lives with his Mom, pratfalls, and a bunch of other easy under-written laughs. Jones was an underplayed pillar of strength, who knew just what to say to people and never felt a need to show off. If only more horror movie heroes were like him!

Man, this flick, what a nightmare! I’m fairly certain this is one of the best monster movies I’ve ever seen. Time will tell, but it may soon enter my list of favorite horror films ever. So nice to say those words about something new! As soon as the air raid sirens started and Jeffrey DeMunn ran toward the supermarket in a panic, I sunk down in my seat with my coat clutched to my face with my hand over my mouth and eyes wide open. And I pretty much stayed like that for the rest of the movie. I must’ve looked like a particularly traumatized combination of Schultz’s Linus and Munch’s Scream. During the end credits, a friend of mine kept muttering “aw f—k… awww f—k…” in shock, over and over.

I think the CGI and practical effects are really frightening and quite well realized, save for some of the tentacle rendering and compositing. A CGI monster tentacle on a crunched production schedule has a lot of trouble being convincing. It doesn’t help that we’ve been seeing CGI tentacles ever since CGI became a growing part of fantastic cinema, starting with The Abyss and all the way up to Dead Man’s Chest, where they had all the money and time in the world. I’m forgiving, as Berni Wrightson’s tentacle designs* are really disturbing and the acting in that scene is tops. All the other effects were classic, in my opinion. Great moments included the pterodactyl smashing into the ice cream freezer and Frances Sternhagen slaying the spider a la Robert E Howard with her sword of improvised napalm (and the spider scuttling away on fire a la The Thing). I love that vaguely-seen giant monster that snatched away the soldier and Ollie. The first thing that sprang to my mind was “It’s The Deadly Mantis! Ahhhh!!!” The deaths in this film are a rather uncomfortably real for such a monster epic. The work of both the actors and KNB Effects pushes things to a higher level of intensity, moreso of the usual “Arrrrgh!” comic book deaths of the random human snacks in flicks like the Darabont-written The Blob (1988). (Well, I did catch the Wilhelm towards the end, discreetly mixed into a spider victim’s dying screams.)

There were some cute in-jokes and references that didn’t hog the screen or distract from the tension. Of course, of all the Drew Struzan paintings to get smashed by the falling tree, Darabont picks his buddy del Toro’s Pan’s Labyrinth. Upon my first viewing, I missed that it was a Hellboy comic that David stole from the pharmacy. Some fan I am, must’ve been scared blind at that moment. Actually, for a Stephen King movie about being trapped in the consumer zone, I’m surprisingly unaware of much product placement besides those Dark Horse comics on that rack. But that’s fine, because my favorite Weekly World News front page, Satan’s Face Appears In Oil Well Fire, has been immortalized by dialog in the perfect movie for it!

I could have done without those extra button-pushing phrases in the dialog, like “stem cells”, underlining that the whole thing is meant as Bush America social commentary. I think the metaphor of the movie works just fine without them. And, as usual, anything added to make a film more current and topical will be the same elements to date badly.

Planet Terror has now preemptively subverted two big moments in subsequent 2007 horror films, making me half-giggle when I should have been shocked. Its mass zombie kill via helicopter blades took the wind out of one of the big moments in 28 Weeks Later. And Planet Terror's shooting of a small boy in a car seen from a distance, with subsequent histrionic parental pathos, made me initially think The Mist was “only kidding” at its most crushing moment and that David missed or was just having a survivor’s bad dream or some other nonsense cliche. Oh, well. As a child I learned it was better to enjoy the Mad Magazine movie satire after seeing the movie!

Oh, I’d like to add a hearty Screw You to the advertising and promotional people for putting images of soldiers with flamethrowers and tanks in the publicity photos, TV and print ads. Way to go, team! My reading of so many ideas and events in the film were screwed-up just because I was painfully aware that the Army guys were eventually going to show. This was probably the worst horror movie promotional spoiler since they showed a certain key 28 Days Later good guy get infected in every American trailer and TV ad. Good going…it still didn’t pull Thanksgiving crowds in for The Mist. I kept figuring that the sheriff from Night Of The Living Dead was going to show up with the National Guard and arrest everyone in the store. (“Aww, right! All you looters up against the wall! Put down that grape jelly!”)

Now having seen The Mist twice, I have issues with the ending but it’s improving for me. The music does seem a bit “inserted”, so I’m not surprised it was a pre-existing recording. I’m not wildly enthusiastic about that track, but I can live with it and it will doubtlessly grow on me over time. It does reflect a bit of how I feel emotionally at that moment, as those people escape only to find nothing but a world ravaged by that endless gray emptiness. I don’t particularly like how David doesn’t even leave the side of the car before the Mist is suddenly clearing in the background behind him and the army tank is right there. I think the ending would have been more palatable if he had wondered forward into the unknown gray-white world for a bit, weeping and enraged, before this happened.

Darabont’s ending is riffing on a concept verbalized in the novella but only implied in the film’s visual design and sound mix: that the Mist plays havoc with your visual and auditory sense of your distance from everything. The flamethrowers sound like the roaring breath of monsters from a distance, even more troubling with Darabont’s juxtaposition with the grimy frightened faces those great actors in the car. Death seems inevitable. These people are only going on the information they have. And after witnessing so many die so horribly, the ability to choose a quick end in relative quiet resolution is tempting.

The ending is working for me ultimately due to my own rather dark speculations as to the best course of action in an apocalyptic disaster. Normally, I would feel too awkward to even allude to such things on these boards. But after living through 9-11 in Manhattan and the subsequent government warnings about the 31 flavors of horrible death waiting for me…I think its understandable that I’ve considered a quick and painless death might be better if doom ever became inevitable. And I’ve also wondered if Murphy’s Law guaranteed that rescue from disaster would’ve shown up a couple hours after I decided to bow out. Of course, my cynical nature tends to doubt the possibility of any rescue. And Darabont’s ending takes my rejection of hope and smacks me across the chops with it. Days later, I can’t turn my back on the ending, no matter how theatrical or artificial it may be. This is certainly an instance where I totally understand why other people are pissed off at this ending. I just can’t deny how it’s still working on me, like an emotional “Rorschach blot”.

From Variety.com:

Wait… that only cost 13 million?!? Should Roger Corman be giving Darabont some special Oscar for penny pinching? Box Office Mojo lists it as $18 mil. Ahh, much like the Fog Of War, it’s the Fog of Hollywood Budgeting.

Of course, the budget for Weinstein advertising will always remain a mystery. But perhaps it was not spent well enough, as pretty much anyone I talked to about this film asked me “Isn’t that just another remake of The Fog?”

Well, wouldn’t the pre-Halloween weekend have been better? Although, with the crunched schedule for this film, I’m not sure if they ever reasonably thought they’d be ready for a late October release. I think, much like the twice-referenced The Thing, that this film will find its audience over time through DVD and cable. But any hopes I had for a stacked DTS-sound 2-disc DVD set are probably in vain. I’m just glad the movie exists as is, with no compromised script changes for frustrated fans to puzzle over for years to come.

FUN MIST STUFF, kids! :

Laurie Holden and Toby Jones are descended from gothic horror monsters! Jones is the son of Freddie Jones, the creature in Frankenstein Must Be Destroyed. And Holden, besides being a BBQed former member of Silent Hill's finest, is the grand-daughter of Gloria Holden, who in turn was Dracula’s Daughter. Neat, huh? Well, I bet the Acker-Monster is really happy about this.

*Berni Wrightson's gallery of Mist monster design sketches (along with some other spooky pre-pro art for other films... dig those scary Ghostbusters ideas!)

Ayup... agreed.

Also agree about the air raid siren... the minute that sucker went off, I got chills. Sort of interesting though, in that I don't know how much power that wail will have with audiences born after the fall of the Berlin Wall.

I've given the ending to much of my headspace since I've seen the movie, and ultimately it comes down to this for me: they should have stayed with the King ending.

And while I enjoy Dead Can Dance, that track was icing on a bad idea. I don't mean that in a good way.

Erm, isn't there *always* a stacked DTS-sound 2-disc DVD set, eventually at least, regardless of performance?

Damn, this movie dropped out of sight in a hurry. So did this discussion! A Mobius thread of a big Stephen King movie without a review from Bob? What has the world come to?!?

In his interview in the Blade Runner documentary, Darabont talks about the summer of '82 and how people only wanted E.T.'s feel-good comfort food, and not the doomy visions of BR or Carpenter's The Thing. Quite ironic considering that Thanksgiving predictably saw The Mist crushed under the titanic stomping legs of Enchanted. Well, the eventual $25 mil domestic take isn't too bad for such a low-budget film.

Any chance for a spider keychain DVD tie-in at Best Buy? Pretty please? :(

I liked the work done by the key performers in the film, but two actors that really caught my eye don't even have very large parts. Brian Libby - someone I've had fun watching since his Chuck Norris movies at the start of the 1980s, and a Darabont acting stock regular - is great as the biker. I didn't recognize Melissa McBride (playing the young mother in the super market) and had to look up her resume on the IMDB. Turns out she too is a Chuck Norris veteran (WALKER: TEXAS RANGER) that I'd seen in DANGEROUS LIVES OF ALTAR BOYS. McBride is tremendously effective in her small role, the effect of it being I'll remember her name from now on and look forward to her other work.