Now on DVD: The Mist

I originally wanted to see Stephen King's movie, The Mist when it first came out in theaters. However, because of time conflicts, I ended up having to wait until it was out on DVD.

After watching it, I'm actually a bit glad I waited.

I did enjoy the movie, don't get me wrong. It's just I didn't enjoy it quite as much as I thought I would.

The film is about a group of people who are in a grocery store when a mysterious mist floats over their town and those who are out in it die mysteriously.

There were two things I loved about this film. First, you never really know what's going on until near the end. At first, you simply have people dying and you don't know if there's some sort of creature in the mist that's killing them or if the mist itself is poisonous. Then, when you do learn there are strange creatures outside, you don't know if they are aliens, mutations or something biblical.

I also like the fact the movie spends a great deal of time focusing on human nature in a crisis. Some of the people try to be heroes; others turn to God while some choose not to wait around at all. This creates tension inside the store as well as outside.

And, I will say this movie had some of the scariest moments I've seen in a while; especially the scene in the pharmacy with all the spiders. I found myself squirming through those moments (and it didn't help when we had a wolf spider walk across our floor later that night).

The reality is I enjoyed every moment of this film; right up until the end. And, unfortunately, I think the ending is what ruined the whole thing for me. I don't want to ruin the movie for those of you who haven't seen it so I won't tell you how it ended but I will say the film tries for an ironic twist at the end and it just didn't work for me. In fact, I was actually pretty upset about it because I could think of a half dozen other endings that would have been better.

On a scale from one to 10, I'm going to give this one a 6. It starts out as a great movie but the ending is so dumb you might forget it.