Post by shawnPost by BTR1701Post by Arthur LipscombThe Mist (blu-ray) - 2007 movie based on a Stephen King book about a
mysterious mist that rolls into a small town and traps a group of
townsfolk inside a grocery store while various giant monsters lurk about
outside. I wasn't really in the mood to watch this but nevertheless the
overall movie is really good thanks in part to the great cast which
includes Thomas Jane as a father trying to keep his son alive, Marcia
Gay Harden as the town bible thumper who sees the mist as the end of
days, Andre Braugher as a New York lawer who thinks talk of monsters is
all a hoax and William Sadler as a mechanic who doesn't believe in
monsters at first either. This holds up very well and if you've never
seen it before, do *not* let anyone spoil the ending!!!!
FYI - The ending is very different from King's novella, and when asked
about it King said he loved the movie version and wished he'd thought of
it.
Really? I know how the movie ends and it's a great ending with lots of
emotional impact. So how does the novella end?
We went south. The mileposts rolled past, counting down from about
forty. When we reached Mile 1, we would be at the New Hampshire border.
Going on the turnpike was slower; a lot of the drivers hadn't wanted to
give up and there had been rear-end collisions in several places.
Several times I had to use the median strip.
At about twenty past one-- I was beginning to feel hungry-- Billy
clutched my arm. "Daddy, what's that? What's that!"
A shadow loomed out of the mist, staining it dark. It was as tall as
a cliff and coming right at us. I jammed on the brakes. Amanda, who had
been catnapping, was thrown forward.
Something came; again, that is all I can say for sure. It may have
been the fact that the mist only allowed us to glimpse things briefly
but I think it just as likely that there are certain things that your
brain simply disallows. There are things of such darkness and horror--
just, I suppose, as there are things of such great beauty-- that they
will not fit through the puny doors of perception.
It was six-legged, I know that; its skin was slaty gray that mottled
to dark brown in places. Those brown patches reminded me absurdly of the
liver spots on Mrs. Carmody's hands. Its skin was deeply wrinkled and
grooved and clinging to it were scores, hundreds, of those pinkish
"bugs" with the stalk-eyes. I don't know how big it actually was but it
passed directly over us. One of its gray, wrinkled legs smashed down
right beside my window and Mrs. Reppler said later that she could not
see the underside of its body, although she craned her neck up to look.
She saw only two Cyclopean legs going up and up into the mist like
living towers until they were lost to sight.
For the moment it was over the Scout, I had an impression of
something so big that it might have made a blue whale look the size of a
trout-- in other words, something so big that it defied the imagination.
Then it was gone, sending a seismological series of thuds back. It left
tracks in the cement of the Interstate, tracks so deep I could not see
the bottoms. Each single track was nearly big enough to drop the Scout
into.
For a moment, no one spoke. There was no sound but our breathing and
the diminishing thud of that great Thing's passage.
Then Billy said, "Was it a dinosaur, Dad? Like the bird that got into
the market?"
"I don't think so. I don't think there was ever an animal that big,
Billy. At least not on earth."
I thought of the Arrowhead Project and wondered again what crazy
damned thing they could have been doing up there.
"Can we go on?" Amanda asked timidly. "It might come back."
Yes, and there might be more up ahead. But there was no point in saying
so. We had to go somewhere. I drove on, weaving in and out between those
terrible tracks until they veered off the road.
That is what happened. Or nearly all-- there is one final thing I'll get
to in a moment. But you mustn't expect some neat conclusion. There is no
'And they escaped from the mist into the good sunshine of a new day'; or
'When we awoke, the National Guard had finally arrived'; or even that
great old standby: 'It was all a dream.'
It is, I suppose, what my father always frowningly called "an Alfred
Hitchcock ending", by which he meant a conclusion in ambiguity that
allowed the reader or viewer to make up his own mind about how things
ended. My father had nothing but contempt for such stories, saying they
were "cheap shots".
We got to this Howard Johnson's near Exit 3 as dusk began to close in,
making driving a suicidal risk. Before that, we took a chance on the
bridge that spans the Saco River. It looked badly twisted out of shape
but in the mist it was impossible to tell if it was whole or not. That
particular game we won.
But there's tomorrow to think of, isn't there?
As I write this, it is quarter to one in the morning, July the 23rd.
The storm that seemed to signal the beginning of it all was only four
days ago. Billy is sleeping in the lobby on a mattress that I dragged
out for him. Amanda and Mrs. Reppler are close by. I am writing by the
light of a big Delco flashlight and outside the pink bugs are ticking
and thumping off the glass. Every now and then there is a louder thud as
one of the birds takes one off.
The Scout has enough gas to take us maybe another 90 miles. The
alternative is to try to gas up here; there is an Exxon out on the
service island and although the power is off, I believe I could siphon
some up from the tank. But--
But it means being outside.
If we can get gas-- here or further along-- we'll keep going. I have
a destination in mind now, you see. It's that last thing I wanted to
tell you about.
I couldn't be sure. That is the thing, the damned thing. It might
have been my imagination, nothing but wish fulfillment. And even if not,
it is such a long chance. How many miles? How many bridges? How many
things that would love to tear up my son and eat him even as he screamed
in terror and agony?
The chances are so good that it was nothing but a daydream that I
haven't told the others... at least, not yet.
In the manager's apartment I found a large battery-operated
multi-band radio. From the back of it, a flat antenna wire led out
through the window. I turned it on, switched over to BAT, fiddled with
the tuning dial, with the SQUELCH knob, and still got nothing but static
or dead silence.
And then, at the far end of the AM band, just as I was reaching for
the knob to turn it off, I thought I heard-- or dreamed I heard-- one
single word.
There was no more. I listened for an hour but there was no more. If
there was that one word, it came through some minute shift in the
damping mist, an infinitesimal break that momentarily closed again.
One word.
I've got to get some sleep... if I can sleep and not be haunted until
daybreak by the faces of Ollie Weeks and Mrs. Carmody and Norm the
bag-boy... and by Steff's face, half-shadowed by the wide brim of her
sunhat.
There is a restaurant here, a typical HoJo restaurant with a dining
room and a long, horseshoe-shaped lunch counter. I am going to leave
these pages on the counter and perhaps someday someone will find them
and read them.
One word.
If I only really heard it. If only.
I'm going to bed now. But first I'm going to kiss my son and whisper
two words in his ear. Against the dreams that may come, you know.
Two words that sound a bit alike.
One of them is Hartford.
The other is hope.
