There’s Nothing Out There. Nothing in the Mist: The Mist (2007)

David, there’s nothing out there. Nothing in the mist.

So The Mist was an okay movie. I thought it was doing really good and totally creepy until the end. The end was totally screwed up as the director had to go and change the story. What a loser!

So this is based on a story by Stephen King. And I know y’all know that a Horrorfest would not be complete without one. It is also not a complete rip-off of The Fog (the new or old film), as everyone thinks it is. There are quite a lot similarities, but they are extremely different in the motive and what the “monster” that is attacking is. In the different versions of The Fog, the creatures are it is supernatural, while in The Mist…well, you’ll see.

So the film starts the day after a huge thunderstorm has hit a little town (of course) in Maine (the usual). A thick, unnatural mist starts to descend on the town, and at first they don’t realize that something far more sinister is lurking within it.

So, that day David Drayton (Thomas Jane), a graphic artist, decides to go to the local grocery store to buy supplies, bringing his eight-year-old son, Billy (Nathan Gamble), and his neighbor, Brent Norton (Andre Braugher) along. You know, just a normal average day.

So while they are at the store, another storm comes and hits the the town. This time it severely engulfs the area in a thick mist. (Whenever I bike to work early in the morning I always think about this movie and The Fog.)

They do notice something very strange. It seems as if there is a plethora of military roaming about the area.

That’s strange

When they get to the supermarket, they find it packed with people stocking up. A military policeman, goes after the soldiers in the supermarket, telling them to pack it up as their leave is over and they need to head out. Everything is normal until a local townsperson runs into the store covered in blood.

He begins screaming that there is something out there in the mist, killing and attacking people. People go to look out the windows to see what is out there, but the mist is so thick that they are unable to spot anything.

Several people rush, out and everyone hears their screams…then nothing.

The decide to seal the doors in order to keep “everything” out. One woman is worried about her children and decides to risk trying to go home. She asks for someone to accompany her, but no one volunteers.

She leaves and we never see her again.

So as you can guess, just like Night of the Living Dead, this film becomes more of a survivor story/deconstruction of humanity than an actual monster movie. You have a group of people trying to survive in a confinied area and while some rise to the challenge, others do not. This film has all the usual Stephen King clichés, like an deeply religious psychotic person who wants to kill/punish all who tries to control every one.

Of course

It couldn’t be a Stephen King film without it.

At one point the group tries to go check on their clogged generator. A couple men go to open the loading dock door to see what the issue is when large tentacles come reaching out and kill them.

This is just the beginning in monster attacks, as they face giant insect, pterodactyl -like creatures, and many more.

In a raid for medicine vis-à-vis The Day After Tomorrow, they run into the military supervisor from earlier hanging from a gigantic spider web. He tells them to question the men in the store for the true backstory of the mist.

In the end it turns out that military are to blame as they opened a portal to another world.

Yes. In an ending as disappointing as Indiana Jones and the Crystal Skull aliens just leaving. (Although the worse is yet to come.)

Eventually the section of the group that is run by the psychotic women, has increased that it outnumbers the other group lead by David. As she tries to get Billy to be a sacrificed, David’s team decides to leave, risking the unknown.

They are able to score a car and the group drive as far as the SUV will take them. They take stock of their options and decide it is better to end their lives, rather than be torn apart by whatever the things are. David shoots everybody in the car, including his son. Right before he turns the gun on himself, a military tank comes charging through proclaiming that they have defeated the monsters.

Yes. Yes. He has just killed his child and everyone when he didn’t need to.

Now I could forgive everything else. The stupid plotholes, the crazy clichés, the other dimension monsters, ANYTHING; but that ending? Really? Really? It’s just dumb.

Duh!

Did you guys have to that? It is so horrible! First of all as he murdered his child when he didn’t need to. And secondly, it is extremely anti-climatic! I mean come on, it would have been so much better if they just had them driving off, no one knowing what will happen to them or whether they will survive. You know, like how it ended in the book?!

Yep you guys really messed up there.

See Hook agrees with me.

To start Horrorfest III from the beginning, go to Even a Man Pure of Heart

For the previous post, go to The Past of a Man

For more on Stephen King, go to He Who Walks Behind the Rows

For more films based on books, go to You’re Gonna Need a Bigger Boat

For more quotes, go to Part X: The Movie List That Would Not Die

But the Book, It Will Never Close…: Along Came a Spider (2001)

“They say that when I die, the case will die. They say it will be like a book I close. But the book, it will never close…”

So this is a film that I have been wanting to see for a really long time and finally was able to. It is on Amazon Instant Watch currently, so I would totally suggest checking it out if you have that.

Check it out

So this film was an amazing thriller. I have to say that I thought I had everything figured out, but in the end I was really thrown by James Patterson.

So the film is based on the book of the same name, and is the first of the Alex Cross detective series.

So the film starts off with Alex Cross, played by the amazing Morgan Freeman, trying to take down a serial rapist and killer. His partner, Tracie, is currently undercover and trying to see if Jim Galloway, the guy they’ve been tailing, is their supposed guy. Everything is running smoothly, until Galloway discovers that Tracie is a cop. He then tries to hurt her, causing her to hit him, the car to spin out of control, and go over the Virginia Falls.

Alex is brokenhearted.

Fast forward a year. Here we have little Megan Rose, a senator’s daughter, who is going to school. It seems to be just an average until…but its not. It is very different as her Charles Lindbergh obsessed computer science teacher, Mr. Soneji, kidnaps her.

The secret service who watches the kids of political parents discover the kidnapping and go looking for her, calling in the FBI.

Meanwhile, Alex Cross is watching news on TV when he receives a phone call. It is the killer!

Yes, just like When a Stranger Calls, the killer is interested in a game of cat and mouse. Soneji wants Alex to get involved in the case so that he can have the fame of not only outsmarting the detective but be widely written about in all the papers. He leaves Megan’s shoe in Alex’s mailbox, prompting him to immediately join the case. There he teams up with Jezzie, Megan’s security detail, to try and track this kidnapper down.

Now I won’t say anymore, because I really do not want to give away the ending, it was so awesome. But I will leave you with reasons why I truly enjoyed this film.

1. Morgan Freeman

Now you’re all probably think, no duh. (Am I right?) And sure it is a no brainer. Morgan Freeman is an absolutely wonderful actor and really connects to you in this role. You feel his pain when he loses his partner, the reluctance to take on a new one, and the drive he has to find this girl, no matter what the cost. He’s lovable, tough, no-nonsense, and the guy you pretty much wish you had backing you up.

2. Megan Rose

Megan is the little girl kidnapped and she’s no push over. This girl is pretty B.A. as she constantly comes up with ways to try and escape to get back to her parents. I love that she is not only super smart, but incredibly persistent stopping at nothing to gain her freedom.

3. Twist Ending

Now the ending is great, it was an amazing twist. It was one of those that when you each the end you see all the little hints that were headed your way and it all makes sense, vis a vis Perfect Stranger. 

To start Horrorfest III from the beginning, go to Even a Man Pure of Heart

For the previous post, go to Who’s Afraid of Cory Wolf?

For more twist endings, go to Happily Ever Aftermath

For more “cat and mouse” type films, go to What’s Your Favorite Scary Movie?

For more films based on a book, go to I Was Here For A Moment. And Then I Was Gone.

For more on kidnapping, go to That Darn Cat!

A Trip to the Mall Turns into the Twilight Zone

So if you’ve been around since the very, very beginning of the creation of this blog, then you will remember that this isn’t my first blog. You see, I read this book Considering Lily, and the main character in there reminded me of myself and made me want to create a blog like she does. My friend Elaine also encouraged me after we had a particularly strange encounter at the mall. That blog was called My Life is a Movie. However, I stupidly forgot to bookmark the page and when I tried to go back to write more on that blog I could not find it at all. I also discovered that there are many, many, many, many blogs who share that name or a variation of it. I gave up and decided blogging wasn’t for me. That is until six months later, after I had finished reading Emma. I loved the book and saw so many similarities that I decided to create a blog, and that dear readers is how Jane Austen Runs My Life was born.

And, that in case you were all wondering, is why it is not only about Jane Austen. That’s how this blog started out, but it quickly expanded into other films and books. However, my Austiniteness will always be the core of these blogs.

Anyways, so what about this Twilight Zone title? Well, I was cleaning through some files and I found two pics I had created and saved from that orginal blog and story. I decided to treat you all with this time capsule as I try and relate this adventure that happened two years ago. I’m so sorry of I leave anything out. So now we shall take a seat in my time machine Delorean and  go back to February 10 or 11 2012 (I know it was before V-Day)

Since this is a past memory, it must be written in italics. You know, kinda like an old-fashioned diary or something.

So the other day my friend Elaine and I decided that we would go to the mall. She wanted to go to Bed, Bath, and Beyond for something and I wanted to pick something up from Bare Escentuals. She decided to put on her GPS, but there was just one problem. GPSs HATE ME! Every time I get in a car with one we end up in the middle of nowhere, we go in the opposite direction, the GPS malfunctions, takes us through the creepiest areas, etc. I’m not kidding, it is literally every time. I mean once my friend went to the Super Target in the next town, and the next week was going to give me and two of our other friends a ride. Even though she had saved the route from the week before, this next time because I was in the car it took us as far away as possible, even though it said it was saving the exact route.

So we are driving around, when the GPS tells us it has to recalculate. We both look at each other:

Like what the heck GPS you had nooo reason to recalculate. We didn’t make any wrong turns, or do anything to screw you up. What are you doing? And the little evil thing decided that it was  going to keep doing that to us.

It just kept doing that nonstop! Recalculate, recalculate, recalculate, again and again and again!!! It made both of annoyed, but I just wanted to take that thing and toss it out the window.

ARRRRGH!!!!!!!!!!!

You know I really didn’t like that movie, but I use this screenshot a loooot. It really expresses my emotions sometimes.

So, of course I didn’t toss the GPS, it belonged to my friend. Instead we had to use a mixture of her phone GPS and our memory of where we thought the mall was. We ended up getting there and thought, well everything will be fine and normal now, right? WRONG!!!!

So we park the car and head into Forever 21 so that we could get into the mall and get the items we needed. As we enter Forever 21 we look around the store, and look, and look, and look; and can’t find a way out!

AHHHHHHH!!!!

I am serious there is NO WAY OUT!  We can’t even find the way we entered. I’m like I”M STUCK IN HERE FOREVER!!!!!!! THAT’S WHY IT’S CALLED FOREVER 21, I WILL BE IN HERE FOR 21 YEARS!!!!!!!

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Okay, so let’s get serious. I felt like I was going to be stuck in there, but not for years. Just hours. So the reason we couldn’t find a way out was that it turns out that they had all these mirrors hanging strategically in front of the doors, so unless you looked at the doors from an angle you would only see the clothes reflected back, therefore leaving one to think the store extended farther than it did, and that there was no way out.

Whoever designed that store was like Jigsaw level of sadistic and psychotic.

I’m serious, those designers and planners were just plan mean and cruel. Who does that?

So after we had survived the dastardly Forever 21, we continued to our destination, when Elaine says she has to use the bathroom. So we decide that we are not going back into Forever 21, but look through the place for other bathrooms. We found them, but you had to walk down this hallway with black and white checkerboards. We walk and walk and walk and walk  and walk and walk…. Yeah it just seems to go on forever. And those white and black checkerboard tiles, give the hall an appearance of shrinking that we start to feel as if we are in Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory or something! 

Except sadly there was no chocolate or Gene Wilder in this adventure.

So we finally reach the bathroom, and go in. But when we come out it feels so weird. It feels like we have been in the mall for hours and hours, or even days. We both started joking around that when we finally got back to the mall we would be entering the 1960s or something. I have expected Rod Serling to pop out at any moment and say “What started out as just an average day for those two girls, turned out to be a shortcut…into…THE TWILIGHT ZONE.”

To be perfectly honest, I love him so much I wouldn’t care if he did pop up like that.

So the rest of the trip was pretty normal. We were both freaked out, that we got what we wanted and got outta there. We were able to get past the Forever 21 gauntlet/maze

I can do this….just have to wait for the right time

We get out to the parking lot and when we do we CAN’T FIND THE CAR!

And NO we were not high. So we are walking up rows looking for it. Joking, and half-believing, that we will find out that it is parked in a completely different area or back on campus. We finally find it and head home. 

Yep what an adventure right? You might not believe me but its true.

I swear. And I have never been back to that Forever 21 because it is tooo creepy to do that again. Stick to the Disney store, its safe. 🙂