So I just watched the film "The Mist" (spoilers)

I thought the "shocking" ending was that the protagonist killed everyone in the car then himself after they ran out of gas. Turns out the real shock is that after he did just this very thing (except for killing himself, as he was out of bullets) the Army was two minutes away, heading north, and if he'd waited five minutes they'd have all been rescued. I've seen this theme before (A Star Trek book called "Vulcan!" which I read as a kid briefly mentioned a similar scenario; stranded spaceship self-destructs when it turns out a patrol ship was coming through just a brief while later) but it's not an easy one to take, in this day and age of happy Hollywood endings.

I think the true horror represented in this film is not the nasty insects or monsters in the Mist, but the evil that humans can to do one another (witness the religious cultists in the supermarket - man, I FELT how good it must have been for the heroes to escape out those doors even with the scary beings lurking outside!) whether through bad purposes or even good, and the terrors that exist within the human mind. That, plus the choices we have to make in life - or on the way to death.

I have read most of Stephen King's stuff over the past 25 years and while I agree with him on most things I've always found his view of humanity a bit bleak and pessimistic. If we experienced an apocalyptic event, would people go nuts with religion and start sacrificing one another? Maybe... but I honestly think most people would split off into their own family groups. I think if society fell and police/the military were unavailable you would still see nice people being nice and assholes being assholes; I don't believe seemingly nice people would rip off their masks to reveal assholes underneath. We're more conditioned than that. Me, if the world was ending my only priority would be to be with and protect my family.

So for me, the most frightening aspect to this movie was the father mercy-killing his own son, thinking they'd all be attacked and devoured by terrifying creatures so the entire group might as well go peacefully.

I'm a father of three, and while I can't even envision (nor would I want to think too much about) being in such a situation, I can state I'd never entertain such a concept unless death was literally banging right on the door. Had I been the father in the movie, once the Army rolled in and I realized I'd just killed my son and three others for nothing, my own lifespan would probably have been measured in seconds and my immediate future would have involved throwing myself under the wheels of the next convoy.

We all like happy endings, but it's the sad ones that are the most memorable; while the original Stephen King novella finished on a happier note (a possible live signal from Hartford that inspires the protagonist to head that way) this one will probably stick around in my brain for a while. This was one film where I had to remind myself several times "They're all actors - this is just fiction. The people who were in this movie are all still alive and well." But I wonder what it says about the human mind overall, that the bad experiences stay with you longer than the good ones.

realistic manner. The first one that really grabbed me in that way was Pet Cemetary.

with the complete lack of it by those that left.

neither led to a good result.

I actually liked both endings. King has a way of reaching people,it's why he's so successful. Yeah the movie ending was bleak,but that's life also,not always happy endings.