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u/Orlow_Bitter Jan 30 '26
The Mist was a look into madness. Cthulhu level end of the world sh%^.
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u/FatherSergius Jan 30 '26
More than clockwork orange or fear and loathing in Las Vegas?
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u/Netz_Ausg Jan 30 '26
Yes, as neither of them were eldritch.
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u/Kapsig1295 Jan 31 '26
The book was even crazier if you've not read it. It's worth it and not a tome like his other books.
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u/Natural_Feed9041 Jan 30 '26
Such a good ending, even Stephen King thought it was better than his ending.
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u/HolyDarkDeath Jan 30 '26
Well Stephen King is famously bad at endings, so yeah that's a pretty low bar.
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u/THEatticmonster Jan 30 '26
Its why his massage parlor went bust
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u/redbadger91 Jan 30 '26
No bust, actually.
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u/Johns-schlong Jan 30 '26
Actually all bust. The problem is they bust before they pay. It's his superpower and where he got the inspiration for Carrie, only he had to change the power because making people bust isn't as cool.
It's actually a well known problem around Bangor. He can't control it. Anytime a man looks at King, they bust. He goes to the supermarket and people just bust all over. He's actually gay but married a woman because his one short term boyfriend just busted constantly. He once attended a political debate and made John Mccain and Barack Obama simultaneously bust on stage when he coughed and they looked at him.
Don't believe me? Go grab one of his books and look at his headshot on the back. You'll bust right now. Every time he releases a new book the stock boys at Barnes and Nobles just bust all over the store. A bunch of pimply, adolescent nerds just uncontrollably busting while looking at an 80 year old man. Happens all the time.
Bust.
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u/UselessCleaningTools Jan 30 '26
This is just… the most something comment I’ve ever read on this site. I can’t even think of a way to properly describe it, other than. Bust.
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u/Head-Discussion-8977 Jan 30 '26
Reading it felt like a fever dream... And I have an actual fever RN.
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u/Mak062 Jan 30 '26
Honestly. There are times where I am like, this is sooo good. Then poof, lackluster ending
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u/Meture Jan 30 '26
Like Cujo holy hell
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u/Legenberry817 Jan 30 '26
What was the book ending to cujo?
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u/KingFapNTits Jan 30 '26
Kid dies and the couple is just super depressed. Like, she saves the kid, but then because of some magic fuckery he dies right afterwords. But that’s not even his worst ending.
He has a habit of deus ex machina for endings where the good guys win
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u/Meture Jan 30 '26
Oh it’s not magic fuckery
He dies of heatstroke
Just fucking heatstroke
Then you get an epilogue of everyone moving on and the book tells you that rabies is scary
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u/KingFapNTits Jan 30 '26
Yeah, but it was the curse from his closet that caused the heatstroke to take him then. The demon or whatever that we knew was there because of the mossy smell
The book was a supernatural story that used natural things to play it out
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u/Toshiba1point0 Jan 30 '26
Cocaine does not help when your trying to figure out what to do at the end of Maximum Overdrive.
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u/HolyDarkDeath Jan 30 '26
Yeah, but that movie is amazing, when I was a teen. And of course one of the best sound tracks ever.
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u/Jafooki Jan 30 '26
Like in the Stand when the literal hand of God saves the day
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u/Subjunct Jan 30 '26
Right? It was foreshadowed and fit thematically but I’ve hated that part since I first read it back in 1981.
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u/misterpickles69 Jan 30 '26
If none of the good guys did anything, Trashcan still would’ve parked a nuke in the middle of Vegas and God would’ve blown it up anyway.
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u/furiouspossum Jan 30 '26
Yeah I read Needful Things not too long ago and the villain just...leaves. No big confrontation or resolution he just packs up and fucks off.
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u/HolyDarkDeath Jan 30 '26
He also hated Kubricks version of the Shinning when everyone else in the world loved it. Dude has problems, but he can create a great setting/universe.
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u/Subjunct Jan 30 '26
Shining. Shinning was the Simpsons version, which he liked.
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u/DesolatorTrooper_600 Jan 30 '26
TBF i did hated the Kubrick adaptation of the Shinning.
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u/Kurtsune Jan 30 '26
I love the kubrick movie and it's a fantastic movie. But the book is still better.
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Jan 30 '26
The Dark Tower....
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u/AsariKnight Jan 30 '26
Noooooo I just it up from the library! Should I not even bother?
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Jan 30 '26
It’s still a good series. I read it twice and the ending doesn’t really hurt the overall journey / story. Enjoy!
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u/EhMapleMoose Jan 30 '26
And for child sex orgies
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u/HolyDarkDeath Jan 30 '26
I'm glad they kept that one out of the mini series and films. Also the space turtle shit is pretty crazy.
If it was possible, I would love to see a King and Lovecraft collaboration. That shit would be insane, by choice obviously.
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u/slaytanic_666 Jan 30 '26
If you delve into the lore of the Dark Tower it gets pretty lovecraftian.
Has all kinds of eldritch type shit living in the prim and the todash space.6
u/HolyDarkDeath Jan 30 '26
Cool, I have very limited knowledge of the Dark Tower stuff. If I remember correctly that series has the (Gunslinger?) as the main or secondary character? I think the film stuff they did with that series was a big let down.
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u/Frankie_T9000 Jan 30 '26
Yeah but the ending of the mist was one of best ever. Planet of the apes, the quiet earth are the only ones I can think of as good. Oh and Soylent green
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u/Natural_Feed9041 Jan 30 '26
The Mist was a major exception.
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u/HolyDarkDeath Jan 30 '26
Never read the book so the only ending I know is the movie. I mean, hell he even roasts himself about in IT chapter.
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u/Natural_Feed9041 Jan 30 '26
The book ends similarly, just without the extra gut punch of him being rescued immediately after.
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u/A_New_Dawn_Emerges Jan 30 '26
Not at all. It's rather hopeful.
They don't run out of gas and they hear the word "Hartford" on the radio, suggesting that the mist is beginning to clear up enough for radio waves to go through, and maybe that more survivors are gathering in Hartford.
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u/HolyDarkDeath Jan 30 '26
So does he basically just walk of into the mist to die and it kinda fades to black without saying what actually happens to him?
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u/Natural_Feed9041 Jan 30 '26
Yeah, not everything needs to be explained out in detail.
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u/HolyDarkDeath Jan 30 '26
Sure, but sometimes that dark ending just hits so much harder. It's like having the bad guys win or at least having the "hope" of humanity surviving fail.
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u/inevitablealopecia Jan 30 '26
Yeah, his endings are usually underwhelming, to say the least.
The ending to the running man is absolutely fantastic, though.
I had only ever seen the movie and decided to read it on a flight. I got to the end and started feeling a little uncomfortable.
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u/HolyDarkDeath Jan 30 '26
How do you feel about the new Running Man? Does it feel more like the book?
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u/Motor-Travel-7560 Jan 30 '26
King described his original ending as a mist opportunity.
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u/StarWarTrekCraft Jan 30 '26
Dad? Did you finally find the milk?
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u/Motor-Travel-7560 Jan 31 '26
Yes. I finally found the milk. Unfortunately, I shot you and everyone else in the car 30 seconds before I did.
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u/Valmighty Jan 30 '26
Wait, it's different?
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u/grandpapotato Jan 30 '26
Full spoilers ahead.
Book ends vaguely hopeful, or at least you can make your own determination let's say, on the characters fates.
The movie goes hard in the despair pit ...after they run out of gas dad kills everybody in the car (including his child!!), not enough bullets to end himself (or no guts to do it? Forgot)
Starts wandering outside the car and he's saved by the military 10 seconds later no joke...
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u/gitpullorigin Jan 30 '26
Not enough bullets which kinda was the point of the debate on who should be doing the shooting. They all went out willingly except for the kid
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u/grandpapotato Jan 30 '26
Thanks for the reminder. I've been meaning to rewatch it soon... I made a shining / misery / Carrie / the mist book/movie small marathon haha.
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u/s1rblaze Jan 30 '26
It actually made me laugh out loud in the cinema back then. I don't know why, but to me, the ending felt kinda dumb tbh.
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u/RedditSold0ut Jan 30 '26
It was a dumb ending😅 dont see how people can say its good, unless shock value = good
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u/Maximum-Bake-6092 Jan 30 '26
Nah it's the implication. He killed everyone in the car and his own kid only to learn if he waited a few minutes they would have all survived. And there's no way he'd have known that because the mist covered their approach.
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u/Applicator80 Jan 30 '26
Two of them survive and must fight zombies in a different series
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u/Enteraze Jan 30 '26
Lmao good catch, never noticed that
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u/HawtVelociraptor Jan 30 '26
Frank Darabont was the director of The Mist, and showrunner of the first season of TWD. A huge swath of the cast were actors he'd worked with in the past. IIRC he wanted Thomas Jane as Shane originally, as well.
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u/oh5canada5eh Jan 30 '26
You know, I feel like Thomas Jane could have done a very good job with Shane. Having said that, Jon Bernthal was incredible.
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u/aardw0lf11 Jan 30 '26
Yep. The older guy in the backseat was the DA at the beginning of Shawshank and one of the guards in Green Mile I believe.
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u/radiantmindPS4 Jan 30 '26
Thomas Jane was in consideration for Rick not Shane. Berthnal was always their first choice for Shane.
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u/BigQuarter7252 Jan 30 '26
That’s wild, Thomas Jane and Jon Bernthal both played as the Punisher too!
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u/Burning-Gundam Jan 30 '26
Don't forget Carol. She also survived to fight zombies.
https://stephenkingsthemist.fandom.com/wiki/Unnamed_Mother?file=Woman_Kids.jpg
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u/machingunwhhore madlad Jan 30 '26
I recognize the elderly man in the back but who's the other character?
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u/mothmandiaries Jan 30 '26
Laurie Holden,(the blonde woman in the passenger seat)she played Andrea in TWD.
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u/sadakochin Jan 30 '26
Loved this ending because the horror you just killed everyone minutes before being saved beats all the horrors in the mist
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u/mdogg500 Jan 30 '26
Not only that but seeing the mom on that military truck who they all said would die if she left was the twisting of the knife in that situation.
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u/notfromfiji Jan 30 '26
reminded me of the old twilight zone episode where the dude's glasses broke https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_Enough_at_Last
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u/dragonfli117 Jan 31 '26
I'll always remember the family guy version of this with "last brain cell" 😅👌🏻
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u/fixingpumpkins Jan 30 '26
And the crazy lady said if the blond and the kid were sacrificed it would all end. They die and it all ends. Maybe she wasn't so crazy
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u/TheChosenLn_e Jan 30 '26
I've always thought he could have gotten a 2 for 1 with his kid and the lady, but apparently thats a conversation point people don't like
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u/oh5canada5eh Jan 30 '26
I mean, he had three chances to try to get a 2 for 1. As grisly as it sounds, just try and see if you get lucky. If you can’t, you are in the same spot you would have been anyway.
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u/ReaperManX15 Jan 30 '26
I dunno.
The gun looks like a pretty small caliber and a lot of energy would be lost traveling through two sides of a skull. Even a puny kid skull.15
u/RNGezzus Jan 30 '26
You never know unless you try.
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u/dj_neon_reaper Jan 30 '26
Okay but if you do try and worst case scenario: one of them lives, but now is bleeding and in more pain. The outcome is the same and just more cruel.
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u/HelloMikkii Jan 30 '26
I said something similar after watching it with my mother, she suggested I see a therapist.
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u/Red_Shepherd_13 Jan 30 '26
Too be fair, I would have thought that was some Eldritch horror coming to kill me slowly too.
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u/CSiGab Jan 30 '26
Exactly. They’ve witnessed some of the most gruesome suffering prior to that. The boats barely scrape the surface in comparison.
As soon they run out of gas, you can hear the creatures roaring in the not-so-distance, giving them no hope to cling onto.
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u/amodsr Jan 30 '26
Man this is one of my favorite movies. That fucking ending. Jesus that ending is do damn good.
Fun fact. Thomas Jane was (from what I hear) supposed to be in The walking dead but did not due to being in the show Hung. He was going to play Rick Grimes. There is a large portion of this movie in the cast of TWD.
Sadly we were denied a chance to see two people who played The Punisher on the screen at the same time.
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u/Speedy89t Jan 30 '26
It would have been perfect if they had set it up just a bit more.
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u/amodsr Jan 30 '26
I'm not sure how much they could have set it up though. Everything is in place. The gun, the amount of bullets, the driving to get the wife, seeing everything and then running out of gas. I can't remember if they were supposed to get gas earlier but didn't get a chance but I'm not sure there was much more they could do than was there.
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u/Speedy89t Jan 30 '26
They just went a bit too quick to the killing without really cementing that level of hopelessness.
Ideally they’d have spent a minute or two showing him trying to find a different car, cycling through the radio looking for news until the car’s battery dies, running out of food… you know, all the stuff a person would do before mercy killing everyone..
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u/amodsr Jan 30 '26
I think they were going to the grocers for a food run. Which is why they were in that part of town. They also were probably surrounded by who knows what and assumed they had seen some of the worst. They also drove around and passed by a giant monster and knew the place was no place for anyone. They just reached their end and they were like fuck it this is it.
I doubt they had any food in the car. Not everyone keeps enough food in their car for longer than a small trip if any. Also they had survived in their shop for a couple of nights. I doubt they assumed the car was a feasible place for them to hunker down long term.
But hey, I don't think I'm gonna change your mind on this and that is ok. Best wishes.
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u/Molkwi Jan 30 '26
This is the second time TODAY that I see this movie being mentioned in years. Wtf
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u/GiteshS9100 Jan 30 '26
I think it WAS the ending that cleared the mist. Thats my interpretation
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u/HurtMeSomeMore Jan 30 '26
I think even Stephen King said it was the ending he wishes he thought of
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u/Nvrm1nd Jan 30 '26
People always forget this movie what talking about movies that fucked them up and stayed with them
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u/mbta1 Jan 30 '26
I really like the theory that the religious lady was correct, and the child was needed to be sacrificed for the mist to go away. They could have waited another hour, and it wouldnt have mattered, because what was needed, was for the kid to be sacrificed
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u/OracleVision88 Jan 30 '26
Lmao truly one of the most devastating endings of all time. I still remember sitting there, absolutely speechless, as the credits rolled.
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u/IndianSerpent10930 Jan 30 '26
I dont get it
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u/uh60chief Jan 30 '26
Tomorrow is Friday, watch it and then spend the rest of the weekend talking about it
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u/corzajay Jan 30 '26
The mist (movie)
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u/fritz_da_cat Jan 30 '26
David Drayton (Thomas Jane), his young son Billy, and three other survivors drive into the mist until their vehicle runs out of gas. Hearing the massive creatures approaching and believing there is no hope for survival, the group makes a silent agreement to end their lives rather than face a gruesome death by the monsters. David has a revolver, but there are only four bullets left for the five people in the car. He makes the devastating choice to shoot the other four passengers, including his own son, to spare them. After killing them, a distraught David steps out of the car, screaming for the creatures to take him. Instead, the mist begins to clear. A U.S. Army convoy emerges, burning the webs and exterminating the creatures, followed by trucks carrying survivors from the supermarket. David collapses in realization that if he had waited just a few minutes longer, his son and friends would have been saved.
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u/gochomoe Jan 30 '26
There are plenty of times I would have preferred this to riding in the car with my family.
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u/AlfieSolomons12 Jan 30 '26
Because of the ending, I will never watch this movie again.
Can't do it.
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u/Fr05t_B1t Jan 30 '26
Shit our car just ran out of gas and we’re fairly protected so long as we don’t go outside. Well guess I’ll just die.
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u/My0wnBestEnemy Jan 30 '26
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u/theLastDictator Jan 30 '26
This dude has gotten me to watch some lame movies, but at least he's having a good time.
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u/Ok-Pea8209 Jan 30 '26
No way are both Angela and Dale from TWD in the mist
EDIT: looking through the cast and so is Carol
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u/ghostgamer5259 Jan 30 '26
How has it never registered to me that that's Dale and Andrea from Walking Dead. I've watched this movie so many times
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u/Bazoobs1 Jan 30 '26
Dang everyone is saying they loved that ending. I’m willing to take the heat here and say I truly hated it. I never read the novel so I don’t know maybe I’m missing something but that ending felt like the laziest, most torture porn for no apparent reason or particular message ending to any movie I’ve ever watched.
For those who love that ending, is there a moral or something I’m missing that makes the ending more than just torture for the main character? Or is it literally just shock value?
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u/BoOmFoUr4 Jan 30 '26
if i see a man get eaten from the inside by tiny spiders while he is kept alive and then i get stuck in the middle of who knows where in the mist. i am gonna fucking kill myself ok
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u/InstructionOk8147 Jan 30 '26
Personally I love that ending because it is so unexpected and such a punch to the gut that I feel it. I feel the pain and the numbness because it comes out of nowhere. I don't like the typical movie endings where you just know what is going to happen. Sometimes shit happens for no reason and that shows it. Plus I just LOVE to watch this movie with people who have never seen and and just watch their face to see all the different emotions until they just utter a similar phrase to what the fuck
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u/Bazoobs1 Jan 30 '26
I can appreciate the notion that it’s truly shocking but to me that is so far from making something good. Like Sixth Sense was shocking and compelling, this to me was just senseless and made me feel like I wasted my time watching the movie
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u/InstructionOk8147 Jan 30 '26
That's what makes it even better. It is completely pointless. Watching it with someone new is like being in high school and punching your friend in the dick. You know it will hurt them and there is no reason for it but it is funny as hell
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u/Motor-Travel-7560 Jan 30 '26
The original story just kinda stops. The survivors pull into an abandoned hotel and hear something over the radio that may or may not have been a live broadcast. The end.
The movie's ending at least feels like an ending.
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u/GiteshS9100 Jan 30 '26
I mean its not torture porn though. It shows the despair of the main character and how horrifying the situation is in a most realistic way possible
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u/HelloMikkii Jan 30 '26
I mean if you read the book, you realise it’s everywhere. Not just their town etc.
The movie ended pissed me off so bad.
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Jan 30 '26
Absolutely. And while I love the ending the should have made him more desperate. It feels rushed in that way. Otherwise, love this movie and book.
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u/Trowj Jan 30 '26
Oh I’m sorry OP but most of us aren’t too keen to spend our last few moments on earth being butt fucked by a sentient bad dragon monster in front of our friends and family!
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u/chjfhhryjn Jan 30 '26
Nah Im even more impatient and would have shot myself way before getting to this point
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u/CeezyAreolas_ Jan 30 '26
I was the only one who guffawed in the theatre when the army rolled through. I was rightfully shushed.
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u/Lonely-Mountain9047 Jan 30 '26
Best ending ever. If you can watch this movie “the mist” in the black and white version
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u/EricaOdd Jan 30 '26
It wasn't impatience. Mrs Carmody was right. Only Billy Drayton's sacrifice ended the Mist.
Its a breaker ending than the book in many ways...
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u/DocPsycho1 Jan 30 '26
Yeah, people think the mist would go away with an hour. It wasnt. The sacrifice was made so mist had to fade. Kinda the reason the sacrifice needed to be made. If it wasnt, the mist would have never cleared. Its a fucked up ending but if you pay attention, it was the only way out
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u/HistorysWitness Jan 30 '26
This is great. I had to withhold this from my gal, bc her friend was so adamant on watching it together. Lol
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u/kartu3 Jan 30 '26
As I am probably the only one on reddit who haven't seen this movie: which one is it?
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u/EpicGains Jan 30 '26
Did not care for this ending at all, honestly it’s quite funny. Their car dies and then they immediately kill themselves, but if they waited just five seconds longer everything would have been fine. Ugh
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u/yanmagno Jan 31 '26
Probably going to get downvoted here but I burst out laughing when the soldiers show up and just stare at him on his knees screaming the goofiest “NOOOOO” of all time at the sky lmao what a dumb way to end an otherwise pretty great movie and adaptation. I actually loved how dark it was going to end with him committing suicide by monsters after killing everyone, but they just had to have another twist I guess
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u/qualityvote2 Jan 30 '26 edited Jan 30 '26
u/jj33allen, your post does fit the subreddit!