I finally saw The Mist on Saturday night.  I know, I know.  It's been out forever already.  It's not been out so long in Tokyo. It was actually out in theaters last time I was in Canada (January) but I didn't go see it then.

I had read the short story by Stephen King.  I could never decide if I liked it.  I thought the idea of the military opening a hole and bug stuff coming through from other dimensions was a pretty interesting idea.  What I never liked about the story was that the main character was such a jerk. The guy was having problems with his wife and he happens to go shopping with his son while this freaky mist comes along and changes society and he happens to end up with a better partner than his wife who died from those things in the mist.  That part of the story bugged me.  It was like one of those divorce fantasies people have and that part icked me out.  I kind of wished the main character would have been eaten by a big bug.

When I was back home, my dad suggested I we go to the movie though he had already seen it.  He hadn't read the story and he said it was interesting.  Having read the story, I decided to take a pass.

So why did I see the movie?  Because there was pretty much nothing else on in English.  There was a movie about Rachmaninoff (Lilacs) that I wanted to see but my husband said no.  We both decided to pass on Next.  The Mist started looking more and more interesting.  I decided to take a look at the movie reviews and was fairly entertained by the wildly different reviews the movie got--anything from not even fit for TV to great movie.  In a fit of, wanna-see-a flick-dom we went to see the mist.  Now I at least wanted to see how accurate the reviews were.

I didn't know that the ending had changed until I saw the reviews and became more interested when one review discussed how far a father would go to protect his child.  Now I had a hook.  

I liked that the movie presented the main character in a fairly normal and happy seeming marriage.  It made the movie more poignant to me.  The changed ending I thought was a lot more frightening and more tragic.  Sorry no more spoilers there.

What I mostly walked away with, though, is the feeling that religious fervor represented by Mother Carmody seemed to be a particular brand of American religious fervor.  I agreed that in the case of extreme fear and faced with the unknown that humanity will abandon civilized behaviour pretty quickly.  But in the case of a dimension opening and humungous bugs pouring through and the end of civilization as we know it, I'd rather be in Japan.

I'm sure that people here would have their own way of freaking out and revert to their instinctual roots in some way, but I really can't imagine it being in the form of some religious nut convincing everyone that we have to sacrifice to appease God. For some reason, I can easily imagine it happening in the US and maybe some European countries or even Canada.  But to be honest, it's a stretch for me to imagine Canada.  Probably depends on the town.

Anyway, for the movie, I expected less but got more.  Yay.  Then again, ever since Maximum Overdrive, I have really, really low expectations of a movie made from a Stephen King story.