Just Read "The Mist"

Here Is a very formal review of the Mist. Be sure to catch The Mist in a film adapted version November 21, 2007.

Stephen King brings the reader into a new dimension of apocalyptic futures within the pages of The Mist. King originally published this novella as a portion of a collection of stories in The Skeleton Crew. This story about the trapped shoppers is now published as a single book, because of the theatrical release of The Mist in theatres this November. A good story exists when you feel for the characters, the environment, and situation. The story takes you within a small town near the coast of Maine during a horrendous heat wave. After a devastating storm a thick mist approaches ominously. The story is written in the first person of David Drayton, a local husband and father, who finds himself trapped in a convenience store with the son he loves and neighbor he despises. The mist consumes the store in an impenetrable thickness. The entire store must join together in order to survive the unknown beings in the mist.
The book takes a different look upon how people both ban together and separate in times of desperation. Analyzing the inner thoughts of David gives the reader a perspective of trust that almost anyone can relate to. King is capable of developing the characters in a way that makes you either love or loathe them. King introduces each character with the past interactions they’ve had with David. You develop your own bias towards them just from the little information David grants you into their lives. Since you’re trapped with the viewpoint of David only, you learn to live with his decisions, opinions, and attitudes. Overall I enjoy how King creates characters that you care about or wish unfortunate events on them.
The environment grants the characters an opportunity to interact with each other in distinctive ways unlike most stories. The majority of the novel leaves you ensnared within an ordinary store that is familiar to almost any reader. Having recognizable environment gives the reader an opportunity to create very vivid and picturesque mental images. King is very descriptive with his metaphors and similes. This makes probably the most impressive portion of this book with the ability to visual the environment and characters. Encased in the environment of the story is what people have become accustomed too. You can use and feel every sense used throughout this story.
The situation in this novel permits the characters to act in a sense of desperation and survival. They dig deep within themselves and pull out the best and worst characteristics. The whole situation with being forced to remain in closed quarters with people you care for or absolutely hate adds an interesting chance to analyze and observe the human interactions of distressed people. An interpretation of King’s message may be that people are more dangerous and evil than an unknown evil mist. King makes a point that people force themselves to create their own hostilities against each other rather than banning together until the end. Although this is a relatively short book, this offers a very unique addition to any type of survival thriller. The Mist is a nice comfortable read and a recommendation for anyone who enjoys Stephen King’s work. The book is also a great way to become introduced into any of the writings of Stephen King. This is the shortest publication under King’s name and works as a good sample if interested in some of his larger works. It will be very interesting to see how a book set in 1980 will translate into a modern movie. Purchase and read the book before seeing the film adaptation.

Killer Clowns Are Fun: IT

I talked about unconventional fears and monsters with the vampires in The Lost Boys. I would like to talk about another type of monster that scares almost all adults and children... I'm talking of course about clowns. Clowns are all over the media and pop culture: Bozo the Clown, Krusty the Klown, Red Skelton, Ronald McDonald, Ashton Kutcher. Face it, clowns are everywhere! Whether it is the circus or your run of the mill street mime, you face one at some point in your life. I would say about 80% of people I talk to who are afraid of clowns mention It. In fact an interesting Article I read about celebrities’ favorite scary films mentions It twice. Out of the 12 celebrities questioned It is the only film mentioned twice. So what is so terrifying about this movie?

I get a lot of questions and comments about this one because my cousin is victim of Coulrophobia (Fear of Clowns). He is now an adult and still says it was all because of It. (reread that previous sentence, it sounds funny) After all this hype I had to get my hands on it and purchased the DVD awhile back. Whenever someone sees it/It on my shelf I either receive a comment on how terrifying the movie was or I simply get asked what it/It is.

It premiered in November of 1990 in a two part ABC special. An adaptation of a Stephen King novel gave it a lot of hype and I guess it won some Emmys too. The story jumps between 1960 and 30 years later present in 1990. When a girl is murdered mysteriously in the town of Derry in present time, a man calls on some old friends to return and investigate it. The adults one by one slowly reminisce about their childhood and their encounters with "It." Most of these memories include Pennywise the Dancing Clown terrorizing the children one by one individually. The only problem is, only the children appear to be able to see Pennywise and any other apparitions. This is a kid's worst nightmare. Kids are terrified of being alone and even worse having a killer clown harassing you. No adults believe the clown exists. Tim Curry's acting as Pennywise is comically horrifying. When you're an adult watching this film you laugh and anticipate when Curry comes out and starts making wisecracks towards the kids. However, when you're a kid, the idea of an evil clown stalking you horrifies you when you’re alone at night. The plot thickens, but is relatively straight forward. The adults come back 30 years later to battle "It" which proves to be more difficult than originally thought.

Stephen King did a good job with being able to make the movie's plot almost too complex for children to understand. Believing the only premise in the movie is that there is a clown running around killing children would have made even me afraid of Bozo. In fact, supposedly Pennywise was inspired by serial killer John Wayne Gacy who dressed as a clown. Scary! There are multiple "clown attack" scenes I guess you would call them. The more prominent one being Pennywise emerging in a sewer and killing the main character's brother by pulling him down. Another infamous scene is in a locker room shower where all the shower head turn on and come alive blocking the exit. Pennywise climbs out of the shower drain commanding a boy to come with him. Supernatural killer clowns don't exist in many other films I know of.

This movie definitely appears to be in the hearts of a lot of individuals, and especially anyone who is fearful of clowns. The ending is very corny and so is most of the movie. The truth of the matter is, this film was capable of giving children an irrational fear against something in real life. Not a whole lot of movies are able to do that. This film is very special and hopefully it's on TV again soon. If not, buy the DVD because it was only about five bucks at Wal-Mart two years ago. You'll find it a very unique item in your movie collection.