The Mist

Watched The Mist last night. This is movie adaptation of one of Steven King's novellas. It's found in the Skeleton Crew compilation of short stories.

The Mist is one of my favorite Steven King stories, so I was excited that there was going to be a movie. When the movie finally came out, I heard a lot of bad things about it. So, I skipped it. After it's release on DVD, I started reading some good reviews. Most of these, however, said to check out the black and white version of the movie that comes on the bonus disc. Which is what I did.

First, it's not the greatest movie ever. But, it's definitely not a 'bad' movie. It's a monster movie. That's it. Maybe that's why it works better in black and white, because it is like an old monster movie. I didn't watch any of the color version, so I don't know for sure, but I would guess that the preference for black and white also has something to do with monster special effects. Going by other films, CGI monsters just aren't scary. In black and white, I have to say the monster effects looked pretty good and they don't have that CGI 'look' that we can all spot a mile away.

So, if you like a good monster film, with some pretty suspenseful sequences, then go ahead and watch it. It does have a very bleak ending, much worse than what is in the original novella. But, it works. Any kind of happy ending would have just been unsatisfying.