The Mist (ified)

On the rare occasion when I get the house to myself and have nothing really useful to do, I tend to spoil myself rotten.

Yesterday, this involved hiding the mobile phone, renting a movie and hitting the couch very hard indeed.

I like to watch movies that I know Trish wouldn’t be bothered with but which I will probably enjoy. So that, almost invariably, leads me straight to the horror section.

Yesterday I treated myself to ‘The Mist’ – which is one I had wanted to see for some time. I knew the Stephen King novella since it was first published and liked it a lot so that was a good start. Add to this that Frank Darabont wrote and directed this one and he had already done quite well with adapting King material such as ‘The Green Mile’ and, of course, that ‘Shawshank’ thingie. I had also heard a few dubious comments about this film which served to lower my expectations nicely.

So, as I lowered the blinds, I expected nothing more than a fun ‘creature feature’ with a few gory moments and, hopefully a couple of hours peaceful diversion.

I actually got quite a but more than I bargained for and that is the primary reason that, if you can stand a little horror, I am going to recommend this movie to you.

The story concerns a diverse group of people who become trapped in a local convenience store when a sinister mist descends upon their town after a frightening storm. It soon becomes clear that there is much more to this mist that meets – or obscures – the eye.

‘The Mist’ ticks all the boxes for an adult horror flick. There are monsters, tension, gore aplenty and there are also many of the stock characters one would expect to encounter in one of those ‘Group of people verses the creatures’ movies such as ‘Tremors’.

But, after ticking these boxes successfully, Frank Darabont then takes the material quite a bit further than one might expect. I won’t say how or what ‘cos we don’t do spoilers too much round here but suffice it to say that it is unusual and quite striking in its execution.

Very few films are perfect and this certainly is not one of them. Let me try for a few criticisms. The acting seems quite wooden at first, until the action kicks in. There is a religious side-plot which seems overwrought and unconvincing to me. One of the more interesting characters seems ultimately to be underused. Oh and there is that perennial problem that the unknown ‘horror’ out in the mist is infinitely more worrying than what finally materialises but I think, not matter how CGI evolves in the future, this will always be the case – nothing can scare us like our own imaginings can. Finally, on the criticism front, I always feel that Darabont allows several scenes too many into his movies, particularly in the final act. I think this is true of both Green Mile and Shawshank and I think it is true here too.

But, all in all, I was very impressed with the time I spent in ‘The Mist’. I found it entertaining, edgy and ultimately more than a little disturbing – which hardly ever happens to me.

I will be interested to see if the upcoming Daniel Day Lewis performance in Cormac McCarthy’s ‘The Road’ sparks a revisit to this film – in several key ways, the themes are strikingly similar.

In the meantime, I commend this film unto you. Have you seen it? Do you agree or disagree with me? Let me know, eh?

I’m over here – can’t you see me?

More Retail Griping

As in most places, there’s a Recession going on around here.

You can see it very clearly in the shops. They are simply not as busy as they used to be. People are not buying so much these days. So you’d think you might get in and out of the bloody places a bit quicker, wouldn’t you?

Yeah right.

On two separate occasions, the other day, I went into a shop and queued and waited and waited and queued. In each case, the solitary person behind the only manned checkout gazed wistfully at the other dark checkouts and doubtless wished for some help.

The shops weren’t dreadfully busy – there’s a Recession on, after all – but there was more custom than one measly till could handle. So I waited.

“Deal with it!” I hear you roar. “The shops are short staffed on account of The Recession, we all have to knuckle down and suffer together.”

It’s a good argument – except it’s totally wrong – and herein lies the rub. There was loads of staff in each of these shops. Gangs of the little feckers. But they were all out doing some nameless bloody stuff on the shop floor. They were all engaged in something-or-other instead of coming in and firing up till number two and letting me be on my merry bloody way.

And what were they doing?

One of the shops was the video rental shop. The poor bugger behind the counter was sweating diamonds and the queue was like a Miley Cyrus concert ticket line. Meanwhile yonder dozy pillock is out among the DVD’s apparently doing nothing more taxing than trying to figure out what he might bring home and watch that evening after they ejected the last of the un-served customers and shuffled off home.

In the other shop, where I was desperately trying to buy an umbrella, one of the floor-people – a guy – seemed to be seriously contemplating trying on a sports bra. I kid you not. Meanwhile, I was seriously contemplating stuffing said undergarment up his arse.

I eventually let the ‘umbrella mission’ go and walked home in the rain but, in the video shop, after five minutes of needless queuing, I cracked and asked whether the mega-star down in the romance section might sidle over here and let some of us poor bastards go home sometime tonight.

And he did and we all saw that it was a better way.

Moral?

Customers – Ask for another person to man a checkout… because you're worth it.

Retailer – I left your shop without purchasing anything for one reason only. Because 50% of your male sales staff were out checking out the bras. What does this tell you…?

…

… yeah, me too.