The Mist The Novella Cut

This is what happened. . . 

I'm watching my copy of The Mist, The Novella Cut.  And, of course, I'm liking it a lot.  I haven't seen the end yet, but I'm liking the film more because I'm not dreading the end.  The movie is broken up with headers, much the way the novella was.  There is an opening note that assures us that this is only a fan film, not meant to in any way disparage Mr. Darabont's work.

Another difference; not only am I not dreading the end, I'm watching it with my daughters.  Why is that different?  Because I previously was hesitant to let them see a dad blow his kids brains out.

This movie really does have the feel that the novella had.

Some quick notes:
1. Mother Carmody is no Bible scholar.  She quotes Revelations, which is a common mistake.  But the Biblical book is titled Revelation, no S.  Why?  Because it is the singular Revelation of Jesus, more than it is a series of revelations of end time events.\\

2. I like almost all the scenes with the monsters.  I think they are truly horrifying.  Fromm the attack in the loading dock to the fight in the store with the flying things -- it's great stuff!  What's more, trips to the grocery store are not nearly as boring, as I can now imagine an attack by prehistoric creatures.

3.Few movies (at least in the world of Stephen King) manage to capture the feel of a novel quite as well as The Mist.  Stand By Me, Shawshank Redemption and The Green Mile all do a great job bringing the book to screen.  But King's really scary stuff usually remains locked in the pages of his books, because you just can't make it happen on screen.  I think The Mist accomplishes some real scares.  This is no B-movie, as Darabont joked.

4. I don't think there is any way a crazy like Carmody would gete that many people to follow her.  I do understand there are religious nuts who gather a crowd; but she goes from being a total outcast in the community, to gaining complete trust in a few moments of crisis.

5. This is easily my favorite version of The Mist.  I LOVE IT!  I feel like something has been redeemed.  That is, it was good all along, but deeply marred by the ending.

6. The Durabont film brings resolution to two issues: Will the mist go away?  And what happened to David Drayton?  The re-cut. . .

I won't give away the ending to the novella cut, but I will say:
THERE IS HOPE.
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2 comments:

  1. PrisonerNumber6November 30, 2014 at 1:33 PM

    Well, perhaps you could help me with something that's been bothering me about this particular product, Reverend.

    Simply put: how legal do you think this is? No offence, I mean I just looked up the Cut's webpage and while I'd still like to see, I'm just left with all kinds of questions about whether anybody is going to get sued.

    Here's the thing, I've never in my life bought a product off a third party before unless it was through Amazon, and I'm not at all anxious to make a mistake here.

    So for anyone else who reads this and has similar thoughts, I don't know, but have there been any hassles so far from a lawyer's perspective, and things like that?

    ChrisC

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  2. David SquyresNovember 30, 2014 at 3:40 PM

    I'm a preacher, not a lawyer. I have tried hard not to post anything I thought illegal. I believe how it works is this:
    1. There are no copies for sale.
    2. You have to own a legal copy to even be considered to be given a copy. (So you bought the film, paid the real artist before enjoying the fan fiction.)

    This makes the fan movie more like a bonus feature. But again, as far as I know, no money is changing hands.

    What I liked about this project is that it wasn't just guys going, "Wouldn't it be cool if we made a few changes?" It was guys going, "This is a great movie! Let's just tweak it a bit and make it a little closer to the book."

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