annathepiper | (Reply)

From:

Going back and re-reading my post from last year about the novella, I am reminded that its ending was very specifically what I liked about it--because it was ambiguous. You never found out what was causing the mist; it was merely implied, rather than outright stated, that the local military base might have been responsible. Similarly, you never find out whether the mist is taking over the whole world or whether David and his kid and the other woman (I've dropped her name) escape.

And, while I can perhaps intellectually appreciate the dark twist of David shooting the others just before actual help arrives, as a viewer, it left me cold.

Part of it is that it felt tacked on to me. That in turn may be because the novella is still fairly fresh in my mind; it was only the tail end of last year that I read it. Up until just before that part of the movie, things had been following the novella fairly closely. So to have that sudden huge, huge departure was a surprise, and not a good one.

Which leads me to the other part of my problem with it. Like I said, I could maybe intellectually appreciate the dark satire of the scenario, on paper. However, as they played it out, it just felt over the top to me. David had already had to endure the loss of his wife and everything else in the story; having him then have to shoot his own child and three other innocent people on top of that was kicking him while he was down. But then, mere moments after, have him get rescued? That was just unnecessarily cruel to the poor guy, IMHO.

And really, that's the heart of it for me, the unnecessary cruelty to the character. Had he been more of an asshole, had there been any sign whatsoever that he might have deserved such a fate, it would have worked better for me as a viewer. Or, alternately, had the entire movie been darker and more sardonic, that might have made this ending mesh better.

For comparison purposes, the tail end of The Ring (the American remake, since I never saw the Japanese one) arguably pulls a similar level of hardcore cruelty to the main characters. But for me, the big difference with that movie was that the entire story had that dark and twisted feel to it, so while I cringed at the ending, it still felt in place and correct for the story. Here, it didn't.

I'm aware, yeah, that King supposedly expressed approval of the ending; I'm glad he didn't dislike it. :) It still did not work for me at all as a viewer of the film.