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List Price: $29.95 | | Label: Weinstein Company
Salesrank: 5595
Released: September 16, 2008 |
| Our Price: $14.20 |
| Used Price: $10.75 |
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MPAA Rating: R (Restricted) Media: Blu-ray |
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Editorial Review:
From legendary frightmaster Stephen King and 3-time Oscar-nominated director Frank Darabont* (The Shawshank Redemption, The Green Mile) comes "one of the scariest King films since Stanley Kubrick's The Shining" (Tasha Robinson, The Onion A.V. Club). After a mysterious mist envelopes a small New England town, a group of locals trapped in a supermarket must battle a siege of otherworldly creatures...and the fears that threaten to tear them apart. Starring Thomas Jane (The Punisher) and Oscar winner* Marcia Gay Harden (Mystic River) in one of the year's most talked-about performances, The Mist is riveting, with "tension like an ever-tightening clamp" (Colin Covert, Minneapolis Star Tribune).
Description of The Mist (Two-Disc Collector's Edition) [Blu-ray]:
Writer-director Frank Darabont, who showcased the softer side of Stephen King in his film adaptations of The Shawshank Redemption and The Green Mile, turns to darker material for The Mist, his latest King adaptation about a group of ordinary townspeople trapped in a supermarket by a mysterious fogbank. Thomas Jane is top-billed as a Maine illustrator who attempts to calm the frightened shoppers, but his job is cut out for him from the get-go, first by the discovery of malevolent creatures lurking in the mist, and then by the mad mutterings of Mrs. Carmody (Marcia Gay Harden), a local eccentric who calls for Old Testament-style sacrifices to appease the supernatural forces. Darabont delivers monster movie thrills and understated social commentary with equal skill, and he's well supported by his cast (which includes Andre Braugher, Toby Jones, William Sadler and Jeffrey DeMunn) and the vivid special effects by KNB EFX, which effectively mix CGI with models and stop-motion animation (the terrific monsters were designed by legendary comic book artist Bernie Wrightson). And for those curious about how the novella's downbeat ending has translated to film, suffice it to say that Darabont's conclusion is at once different and more unsettling than King's. --Paul Gaita
The Mist (Two-Disc Collector's Edition) [Blu-ray] Reviews:
ending not consistent with the characters 
2009-12-11 - The entire movie focused on the few characters who could ultimately take the big chance to survive. Ending it with a mass murder/suicide of these characters just struck me as unrealistic and inconsistent with their personalities.Enjoyed the film up to the end, it was otherwise quite well done. Ending it this way struck me as shock for shocks sake . I won't watch it again
Hell is other people ... a surprisingly effective and dark old school horror thriller 
2009-12-07 - Sartre, perhaps, said it best: "hell is other people," i.e. we do a good enough job making life difficult for each other here on Earth, so who needs demons?
Following a violent storm that wrecks his studio, illustrator David Drayton takes his son Billy into town for supplies. Once there, however, an unnatural mist traps them in the supermarket. The situation goes from inconvenient to horrific when they discover there are monsters in the mist; but mistrust and paranoia lead quickly to a situation inside that is more unsettling than the unknown horrors around them.
I just saw this for a second time, and was once again impressed by how effective it was in its dark simplicity and how much it resembled the old school 50's and 60's horror thrillers like The Thing from Another World and Night of the Living Dead. It puts the focus on the human drama, and the way that fear and mistrust can make human beings worse than any monster. Marcia Gay Harden's apocalyptic power grab was truly frightening, and it's rare that commercial Hollywood filmmakers have the guts to deliver on a premise as scary as this one, and carry it through to the finish. Compare the ending of this film, which is smaller scale but to my mind more effective and in its own way sublime, to the ending of Steven Spielberg's War of the Worlds, or to the ending of any other conventional Hollywood horror film and it will be clear how unique Darabont's approach was here, that managed to ramp up even on the darkness of Stephen King's original vision. I'll take this kind of inventive and thoughtful horror anyday over torture porn like Saw and Hostel.
cruel and agonizing 
2009-11-15 - this film is perfect even if some people did not like the final moments. Maybe not an exactly scary movie but an agonizing one. You follow the despair of people who dont know exactly what is going on when a strange, supernatural mist literally invades a small town and envelopes everything on a horrifying and almost living shroud. A group trapped in a supermarket by the mist suddenly begins to be attacked by incredible monsters (in spectacular effects)apparently coming from some unknown zone inside the mist. Fastly the group splits in two factions, those who are afraid and do nothing and those who are afraid and intend to take some action to scape from this twilight zone-situation, facing the unknown (oh, there is an explanation, the old cliche, an obscure military experience...). Usually the good guys win and have a happy end but here cruelly the good guys loose, taking the wrong decisions... really one of the best horror movies of this century.
A movie can't be different now days. 
2009-11-11 - I loved this movie and i can't see why most people don't like it,it wasn't no Dark Knight,but it had its own style,Yes the acting could be better but who cares,all i want is a good story and that's what we got.I know alot of the folks on here may have left the same reviews on Youtube, but you will still get the latter like me who loved this movie for being its own.The ending left me shocked and had me thinking like damn atleast you knew the military was kicking ass because hey it was their screw-up and they had to fix it.Wish he would had waited a few before he killed everyone tho.That's what happens when you believe its the end of the world and you wouldn't the one you care about to be food for those creatures.Realistic ending indeed i would surely had done the same.But why didn't he just jump in front of one of the tanks when he knew he screwed up big time huh lol.So to all the haters out there who wants a movie to be epic like DarkKnight was this wasnt that type of movie just watch the movie for what it was,a Horror Picture.
Worst Ending I've Ever Seen 
2009-11-09 - This movie was a five-star icky bug right until that disgusting bummer ending. I've never been more mad at a movie in my life.
When it comes to bummer endings, I thought The Ruins had it in the bag. However, after seeing this piece of trash, I can see why Mr. King gave a big fat blurb for the book version of The Ruins.
The whole movie, right until the end was great. Lots of mystery, plenty of icky bugs, and a sort-of explanation of why it might be happening. Then there are the actions of the people trapped in the store. The religious fanatic who whips everyone into a religious frenzy was a big nod to Lord Of The Flies and how it is handled by the heroes is one of the best scenes in the movie.
However, it all boils down to the payoff, the ending. This is where the movie gets 90% of its rating. As I said at the beginning, it was five stars up until that scene in the SUV as they are sitting out of gas. Maybe there were alternative endings and I happened to get the bad one. Or, maybe it was always intended to be this way. I don't even know if the original short story ended that way as I'm not a big fan of Mr. King's books. All I can say is that the less than five minute ending scene ruined what was a top-notch icky bug.
Some people like bummer endings. More power to them. As far as I'm concerned, I got ripped off. Not recommended at all.