The Mist/Headscratchers

• At the end of the movie, pretty much everything Mrs. Carmody said has come true exactly how she said it would. Hell, the mist only disperses when the military shows up... immediately after David has killed his son, which is exactly what Mrs. Carmody and her congregation wanted to do. Does that mean that we should have been rooting for her all this time? In other words, is *she* the hero of this movie?! That's... a little disturbing.
  • Yup. It's meant to be eerily ambiguous who's right.
  • Maybe we should root for them for at least trying? Also... aren't you going too far in the causal correlation between David's son dying and the military showing up and the mist dispersing?
    • Possibly, but consider that everything Mrs. Carmody said came true, including that bit at the end (even though she wasn't there to see it). Also, when the bugs invade the store, they not only don't sting her but actively let her live. Seems pretty conclusive to me.
      • Not everything. She claimed divine protection when one of the bugs decided not to attack her, when the film made it quite clear to the audience that it was because she had avoided moving or generating light.
  • I saw it and thought "Hm, the bugs are evil and she's evil. Demonic correlation."
    • Many creatures are a lot less likely to attack if you don't panic, and some will actively avoid you if you're not acting like prey (cougars, for example, will likely run if you fight back). Mrs. Carmody remained very calm when the insect monster landed on her, so it's possible the bug interpreted this as, "Not afraid. Must not be food."
• At the end, when David shoots the rest of the survivors to spare them, why doesn't he just have two of them put their heads together and kill them with one shot? Problem solved, and he wouldn't have had to learn that he killed them all in vain. The gun looked plenty powerful enough to do the trick.
  • I'm not sure the bullet would be able to get that far. The skull is tough, and it'd have to go through that at least 3 times (in, out, in) to work. And if David screwed up, they die slowly and painfully, which is exactly what they were trying to avoid.
    • Given that we've already seen it penetrate at least one exoskeleton, if it were me, I think I'd take the chance. Anyway, slow and painful is at least preferable to slow, painful and terrifying.
    • Most of these monsters (except perhaps the spiders) seem to kill their prey relatively quickly. It's more of a tossup between "slow and painful" and "painful and terrifying, but fast." And face it, dying slowly from a botched gunshot is liable to still be pretty terrifying.
• Why didn't they just keep the original ending? The film version goes way beyond Shoot the Shaggy Dog and also comes with the most cliche, narm-worthy timing ever.
  • The "Non-ending" that many Stephen King short novels end on just doesn't work as well for movies. It's harder to have a sense of closure in a motion picture that just stops rather comes to a conclusion. Many of King's short novels and short stories have this kind of low key ending, and they are almost universally changed for adaptations.
  • The alleged narm-worthiness is very much a YMMV. In this Troper's experience, the entire reason people remember this movie is because the of the ending. It's also worth noting that King, himself, prefers the film's ending.
• When David first tells the group what happened in the loading dock, nobody seems to consider the fact that Norm is nowhere to be found. Even later when Norton is arguing to leave ("You throw some cow's blood around a loading dock"), he doesn't mention it. Perhaps Norton thinks Norm ran on home as part of the supposed prank, but what bugs me is that nobody ever brings it up. You would think the fact that one of the group has VANISHED might make people a little more inclined to believe David's story.
  • Monsters aren't real. You'd believe pretty much anything before you believe that monsters are real.
  • This was sort of mentioned in the original draft of the script. The manager was calling out for Norm wondering where he went.
  • Pretty sure some of the guys in the store were going "Norm? Who's he?" in the background.
• The woman who leaves the supermarket to find her kids at the beginning. Yes, her fear for her children is perfectly understandable. Yes, it's still stupid for her to leave the store alone and without any protection whatsoever. And she lives, not that we ever find out how. The message is subtle as a brick — simpering, virtuous stupidity is rewarded, while pragmatic intelligence fails. Then again, she may have just bothered me so much because her dialogue ("Won't any of you help a lady home?") falls squarely into that odd realm of Stephen King dialogue that looks fine on paper but sounds utterly unnatural when spoken by a real person.
  • Disagree with the dialogue thing. To me it sounded like she was appealing to chivalry and begging them for help while still remaining somewhat dignified. She also sounded like she knew what she was getting in to, and just went for her kids. And for all we know, she spent days fighting off hordes of monsters with sticks and rocks, got to a working communication device and told the military about the extent of the situation, saving hundreds or thousands of lives.
  • really? combined with the final ending I took the lesson to be if you give up you deserve the worst. Only the people who do not give up can get a happy endings even if it means risking certain death.
  • The "subtle" message is that there is no message --horrible things happen that can lie beyond our control, and whether people come out the other side unscathed has nothing to do with any personal virtue, intelligence, or pragmatism. Life itself does not "reward" or "punish" behavior: good things may happen to bad people and vice versa, simply for cold, pointless happenstance, and the only thing we can do is cope and try to pick ourselves up afterwards... Or the lady might have fled at just the right time to escape the otherdimensional creatures and reach her children. Like the above troper stated, we have no idea what she went through.
• The sheer stupidity of the people in the mall. It is true that people will do idiotic things when frightened, but it went way, way beyond Willing Suspension of Disbelief for me. It seems ridiculous that after a few days of terror, dozens of people would follow a clearly insane religious demagogue and willingly try to murder women and children. If they'd followed, I don't know, some sort of survivalist-type guy who wasn't so clearly crazy... as it stands, the film is near-unbelievable by the end.
  • Its classic cult psychology, take away everything from a person including their security that the world is what they think it is and then use a strong confident personality and many will follow. only many mind you, the opposition got whittled down by the creatures.
  • This is pretty typical of Stephen King's works, the worst of people (or at least their inner crazy) coming out, especially in stressful situations.
• Am I the only one on Brent Norton's side? Maybe it's because David is so utterly unlikable, but Norton makes sense considering he didn't see the monster. David doesn't explain it very well either, resorting to insulting him quickly.
  • What's so unlikeable about David?
  • Yeah, you're probably the only one. David adressed him in the most civil manner possible and only insulted him after he acted like a total dick for awhile. And maybe he didn't see the monsters, but at least five other people had seen them or their remains and were backing David's story. But he refused to go to see it for himself or believe any of them because they were "godamned hicks" trying to fool the smart city dweler.
• In the end, David decides to mercy kill the others... As soon as the car runs out of gas. Isn't that a little hasty? It may have eventually come to that, but what harm would waiting there in the car for awhile do? Of course he couldn't know that help was five minutes away, but by shooting them right away he ruined any chance of being found or waiting it out
  • That whole ending bugged this troper, too. They're basically taking a quick death over a possibly painful one, but at that moment, there was no clear and present danger. In fact, given that there was mist everywhere, it would make them that much harder to spot, especially if they all stayed still and kept the windows shut. It just seemed ridiculous that a father would choose to kill his own son at a moment when they were relatively safe and there was still a chance of survival.
    • Not to mention the kid just woke up. You'd think he'd wait until he fell asleep again, at least.
    • Really though, consider the situation. Ya, there wasn't a clear and present danger at that moment, but they were trapped in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by mist with nowhere to go and no reason to expect rescue before they die of thirst or get eaten by monsters, and they're not exactly about to go exploring on foot. There was little hope to begin with, but once the gas ran out there was just little point in going on, given that they could guarantee a quick, painless death or possibly wait days to die horribly.