Happy Thanksgiving, Monsterfesters. It looks like it'll be happy, too, for all those involved in The Mist, which is garnering generally very favorable reviews. Rotten Tomatoes, the site that culls and averages reviews, has given it a healthy 70 percent positive rating. We like it, too: check out Ravenface's video feature and my interview, too.
The New York Times belly-ached about the moralizing in the movie, saying, "Until the monsters and the meaning start to emerge, this shivery story works your nerves far better than most recent horror does, largely because it knows that nothing scares moviegoers better than our own overactive, reactive imaginations. This is a film that knows how to make you jump in your seat simply by showing you next to nothing: It knows you’ll eagerly fill in the blanks all by your lonesome, genre-conditioned self."
The ending is quite a bold move, one that some don't completely appreciate. Says the Chicago Tribune, "As for that ending (very different from King's), well, it's certainly brave. It's probably braver than it is dramatically effective. But the film is absorbing, and by the time the ending arrives, you may be willing to cut it a break, as I was, even if Darabont's nervy resolution cuts the audience no break whatever."
Finally, the Seattle Times righteously says, "How do you approach horror when we've been living in a culture of fear for so long? The answer — or at least one of them — is that few things are scarier than superstition and ignorance trumping reason in dangerous times. That element, along with a knockout ending that'll make you say, "Whoa, they really went there," elevates the fairly familiar — if well-crafted — material into a ride worth taking. It'll look especially familiar to fans of the popular Silent Hill video games, which are said to have been inspired by King's 1980 story." Now the question is, can The Mist defeat Beowulf this weekend?
