Every day this month I’ll watch a horror movie.  Maybe I’ve seen it before, maybe its new, but either way I’ll look at it and tell you what my funny book loving self thought of this flick.

First up is the Mist.

Last year I fell in love with the Walking Dead and started to pay attention to the name Frank Darabont.  I know, I know.  Its a huge omission in my geek credentials.  With his unglamourous exit from the show, I needed my Frank fix. It was finally time to watch some of those horror movies that I was too scared to delve into when I was younger.  And, yes, being a scared little bitch.  This is how Netflix brought me The Mist.

Holy shit.

If you haven’t seen it, go away now.  For the rest of you, follow after the break.

Alright, the rest of you have already seen the movie and we can talk openly.  The movie starts with a storm and a causal day.  I do love a good universe full of fantastic shit, but there’s something special with a normal world that has one strange thing happen.  And that’s what this is.  One odd thing, then something bigger, then even bigger.  However by starting small all of the larger things to come later can be easily accepted.

So, our characters go to the local grocery store to get needed items after a large storm, and also to have some small talk and banter about the early morning’s events.  An old man comes running in the doors, screaming that something is in the mist.  Doors are locked, and the slow build of monsters begins.

There are three great things to this movie.  The monsters, the zealot, and the ending.  First, the zealot.  She’s neither good nor bad on her own. However her followers use her words as weapons.  Along with actual weapons as weapons.  No one is safe amongst the horror that is mob violence.

Second, the monsters.  It may be a tentacle, a giant mosquito or bird, and then they get bigger and nastier.  The spiders provide what might be one of the grossest things I’ve ever seen in a movie.  This was the point when I told my fiance, you might not want to watch this film.  Later one of the largest creatures ever dreamed on camera walks past our core group.  This unfathomable beast becomes the straw that breaks the camel back of society.  With odds that large against you, and all of humanity, there is only one option: give up.

Which is exactly what leads to the third point, the ending.  It hits like a kick to the chest.  I had to pause the movie to recover from the shock.  No happy endings here, you end up dead or irreparably damaged for the (short) rest of your life.

Its rare to see a movie that doesn’t follow the usual script.  Even in this genre its rare to see a horror movie be more than willing to off its central characters (Scream 4 anyone?).  Nothing about the movie is predictable and everything hits harder than most of what you’ve seen before.

Oh, and then there’s the black and white version.