@@daniellewillis2767 it's funny because I've actually talked to Mista GG in the last couple days. So who knows, may be talking about this comment in a year or two with the Wendigoon himself. 🤞
I noticed in the wiki entry about todash space it refers to the old ones...is there a link to the eldrich beings of the lovecraft universe? @@PolterGibbst
@@suicidebylifestyle9267 so I'm not sure but it is definitely inspired by Lovecraft. King was inspired by Robert Browning's poem 'Child Roland to the Dark Tower Came' for his whole Dark Tower series. And I know he has talked about being inspired by H.P. before. So I wouldn't be surprised if it was a direct tie in, but I haven't read enough to say one way or the other yet.
Melissa decided to brave out the mist, kept her hopes high about finding her children, and she managed to rescue them. I believe that seeing them safe and sound in the ending is basically the writer telling us "Yeah, that's what would've happened if you hadn't lost hope". I've been told by some commenters down below she originally dies in the book. My point still remains. The movie director, not the book writer, is the one sending the message.
Exactly! She even offered to anyone in the store to go with her, they thought it was death but that would have been their safest choice in the end. Plus I just love that whole scene, Melissa did amazing and delivered the best lines of the movie.
I'd love to see a parody skit where she does all these silly things and kills off the creatures, like accidentally tripping a giant creature, moving out of the way of the acid spiders to have them spray onto the flyers, etc.
She went on true faith, not propaganda. The other lady was talking out of the side of her neck. If she believed in what she believed in, she had a left with her now. That's faith
@@dozier-bd7gt Think that's why she was the only one not influenced. BUT I do think David would have done the same if Billy was at home. He definitely would have walked a lady home, and we could have had a very different movie... and ending.
Ollie didn't die, after being pulled into the mist he endured a several hour, bare chested wrestling match with the monster until he choked it out. He's alive and now king of the monsters.
I would like to point out that even if she was right, being right because youre listening to the whisperings of an evil eldritch entity doesn't necessarily make you "not crazy".
Sure is she evil and wrong? Of course, but shes literally hearing someone speak to her, if my mother abused me and made me kill animals, im not crazy, shes evil and manipulative. This lady is literally being manipulated by a god, I feel we can atleast say shes not crazy.
Ok, let's pretend he's correct and Carmody really is hearing this voice telling her to kill people and she does because, from her perspective, it's God telling her to! Just because there is an actual voice telling her to kill innocent people, 1 being a small child, doesn't negate the fact that she's a fanatical nut job! So she's not crazy because the voices are really there, she's not imagining them, but she IS an absolute FRUIT CAKE for not just listening to them, but then doing what they tell her to do! Any SANE person is going to know that it's NOT OK to blame, essentially the army base janitor, for what's happening just because he was there and then decide to FEED HIM to the giant Lobstrosity! Then, once she gets a taste of being a leader, once they start to feed into her fanaticism and she begins to believe her own BS, she then says that they need to kill a SMALL CHILD who's only 'crime' would be having needed groceries on the day Mama Carmody decided to stop taking her meds! And now that more than of the people in this store have succumbed to mass hysteria, they are all ready go along with it. I think a very telling line that shows just how out of touch with reality these people are is the lady that says "You murdered her!" To Ollie when he shots and kills Carmody. Not 10 seconds ago they were willing to rip this CHILD from his father's arms because Carmody said the voices told her to, but when they refuse to turn the kid over and kill her NOW it's murder? Yeah ok...
Evil? thats an interesting statement to make.. Everyones evil to someone else and we always consider something as the good of evil. The Walking Dead tv series, shows this so well. Rick's group are the protagonist but to everyone else they're a plague tearing its way through death leaving more death behind them.
that scream was so intense and it hits you in your soul at the end. yeah the mom had hope to see her children and she did. they had no hope left and that is what happened. I feel this.
Fear changes everything. That's the only constant and the only real motif of the film. No one was right, no one was wrong. It is nature taking its course, like a wildfire, as different people, gripped by fear deal with the inescapable effects of uncertainty and hopelessness.
“No moral, no message, no prophetic tract, just a simple statement of fact: for civilization to survive, the human race has to remain civilized.” -Rod Sterling
One could be forgiven for assuming it’s a bit more than nature, when we are dealing with inter-dimensional creatures. While theoretically natural, the world of the mist has alot unexplained. How do these bugs communicate with each other? Is it telepathy? Are theyindependent thinkers or a hive mind? Can the “queen bee” or “crimson king” influence people? We just don’t know, and the movie doesn’t care to explain it.
@@heypistolero No, he didn't had to die. The entire point of the sacrifice is that they ONLY MADE THE Shop at "free buffet" for the monsters. They KNEW there would be food in there and thus would stick around. The entire point of the movie is that leaders like that are the real monsters. While the things in the mist are just that: things, animals. That are in the end no different than your Bear, Wolf, Spider, Shark. The fact some people can actually defend the Crazy religious leader is just one more example of stupidity made manifest.
I remember watching this movie in the theaters. Marcia is so talented and did a wonderful job playing a villain. That when she was killed, a group of people in the theater cheered.
Fun fact: Melissa Mcbride's character was supposed to die in the original script, David and his friends should have seen her on the ground at the end of the film when they were in the car. But apparently Melissa moved the actors and crew during her monologue, so the director decided to give much more importance to her character by making her survive the mist and the creatures.
So what you're saying is, in a crisis situation you need to make an emotionally moving speech so you'll get deus ex machina'd to survival. If you don't make it, that was only because your speech wasn't good enough.
Seeing a paladin driving out of the mist followed by all the armor, infantry and even air support is one of the biggest unexpected slaps in the face of any movie ever
I'll say this: I'm someone who actually gets compelled by spoilers, to watch something/read something/play something. Had I known about this ending way back when, I would've watched it a HELL of a lot sooner.
She is about as right as a person saying the ocean is dangerous. If you tell a dude he will die if he tries to swim across the Atlantic Ocean, it doesn't mean you can predict the future when he drowns.
Yeah, she’s just a metaphor for religious people who rationalize things to fit their world-view. Stephen king always shits on Christians 😂. And thank god, because that nutty bitch did absolutely nothing good.
Whether it was the sacrifice that pushed back the mist, or the army breaking through, that man has to live with the fact that hos family died by his hand. Even if he thinks later how Billy's death could have driven off the mist like she said, he can never be certain. All he can know is that the moment he gave up hope and put his family's blood on his hands, he was doomed to walk forward alone
Yep, most of this is all a theory of course, but that hopelessness is not. That was Darabonts goal and he succeeded in showing what it means to lose hope.
Considering King's pension for inserting biblical references into his horror, i'm SURE it wasn't unintentional. So many things allign perfectly, and the concept of divination is NOT lost on stephen king's work. I truly believe that Mrs Carmody could see the future, or atleast parts of it. @@PolterGibbst
Bold of you to assume he is gonna live out his life. If I were the main character I'd self delete at the earliest opportunity. Like going for a soldier's gun for example.
You are missing a key event in the movie that counters your argument about the Mist. At the begin, just as the Mist comes in there is an air raid horn being used and afterwards a huge explosion. That explosion is the portal being destroyed. Now the insects\monsters and the mist are on borrowed time and their demise is unavoidable...
@@justicedemocrat9357 Yes, why would humans have a portal rigged to explode when they were researching potentially Earth ending dimensjons. Why have any safety features on such. How simple are you?
"That explosion is the portal being destroyed." That's speculation, not a fact. We never see it in the film nor have anyone discuss it, thus never really know what happened. It is just as likely that the explosion is the system that provides containment around a thinny into todash space. Or something else entirely since we're just making stuff up.
I saw this movie so many times in theater when I was like 19/20 the ending was super necessary what're you talking about lol. It's one of the most unforgettable movie endings of all time yes it was misery and cruel but it left an impression that's for sure. It's important to have a movie or story that shakes us to the core and is like nothing we've ever seen cuz it had the courage and confidence in their vision to tell it like this, it's true horror.
Every time I rewatch that movie I feel like Melissa "cursed" them in some way, as she asks for help and when they make excuses to not follow, it felt like the ending was them getting punished for their selfishness. Some brutally died, others lived with guilt and remorse. and jet her and her group survived without a single scratch and her kids are safe at her side.
I like this notion. Never really knew how to interpret the look she gives him when they see eachother Maybe in a cruel twist of fate thats why David got to live, he was the only one you could argue wasnt being selfish since he had to prioritize his son? Twice 💀
Thinking the same. Mrs C. mentions "sacrifice" and maybe that is what the Mist wants: sacrifices. She also mentions that "the boy must be sacrificed". Once he is, the Mist disappears. I wonder if there is a separate story to the boy, some kind of prophecy or curse King and Darabond had in mind.
I went to my parents’ house a couple of years ago. They were watching this movie. Dad tells me it’s almost over. So I sat on the couch to watch with them. With only 10 minutes or so until the end. I will forever be haunted by those few moments of the movie. I have never actually watched the whole film.
Don't watch the rest of it. The movie really is SYFY channel shit. The ending is just such a cruel twist, that damn near every person insists that you see the movie just for that ending. The CGI and acting are all daytime television at best. God I loved that ending though. Movie could have been so much better.
@@nignamedmutt7270 No way. The acting in the film is perfect and the point, the monsters were secondary, to the human conflict. with advances in cgi, yeah it looks not up to snuff by today's standards, but this was a 2000s era movie.
@@AntiDecepticonCampaignRidiculous statement. Good films are worth rewatching, especially through an alternative lens, even if one ultimately isn't convinced by a different explanation.
I just rewatched The Mist, and you were completely right. The whole movie is changed by carrying the Dark Tower theme foreshadowed in the opening shot. Carmody falling under the sway of the Crimson King and speaking her prophecies/spells makes so much sense. All of the spider creatures being there also connect to both the Crimson King and the todash space, and the ending looks completely different. Thank you for this.
I love this movie. My heart broke at the end. I and the person I was with were both stunned. We sat there for a while just trying to wrap our heads around it. Yes, the loss of hope was the biggest take away for me and the idea that when faced with a catastrophic event, humans lose their minds. The sacrifice angle, though, never even saw that and it makes sense and now truly fits into King's style, good vs evil. Wow....just wow. Subscribed.
Man, as soon as you showed what he was painting in the beginning I knew where this video was going. And honestly, I can't believe I missed it. I'm a huge Stephen King fan and love the little details across his stories that link them together. You've also made me rethink about some of his other stories I never would have linked. Insomnia, for example, completely changes with these links.
My cousin's boyfriend went to school with SK. They used to go camping together. One of his favorite stories to tell about SK was how they came back to their cabin once on a foggy day to find the whole place crawling with praying mantises. The first time I read The mist and saw the film I thought back to being told about that camping trip in the late 80s.
I love the analysis and proposed alternative that the child had to die. But I think what is even more painful and real is how much of life is simply timing. The moments we miss out on because of our angst and the moments that we experience out of sheer luck. That’s why the ending was so profound for me.
Yup, you earned your like. For years I was mad about the movie's ending because in no way in hell would you shoot your kid just because you thought that death was inevitable, you would still hold hope for them if not yourself but the explanation being that a sacrifice was necessary to end any further tragedy makes sense why only after their deaths did the mist finally disappear. The movie isn't about just scary bugs, it's about a Lovecraftian evil from another dimension that goes beyond the physical, really makes me appreciate the movie so much more.
@@marhawkman303 and if that’s true then the five in the car were probably driving away from the dissipating center of what was the mist, causing them to dwell in the mist a lot longer than they would have if the just stayed in town.
I've read all of the The Dark Tower, The Talisman, Black House, and several other books connected to the gunslingers and the Dark Tower. I never thought of how this story was connected, but this makes a lot of sense. The kid probably had potential to be a gunslinger, which made him a target. Mrs. Carmody acts like a lot of villains influenced by "The Red". She was probably little more than a puppet by the end. Seeing it from this perspective actually makes the movie a lot better to me, but I'm still not rewatching it because that ending is traumatizing.
ALL of kings books revolve around the dark tower, the dark man, and the gunslingers. Literally every single book hes written revolves around the dark towers
@@tamakunminnip2117yup, they all take place in some part of the multiverse which all connect to the tower, so even those ones that don't seem to have much to do with anything supernatural are still part of it.
@@jonnybarnard8578 there is nothing supernatural in any of those stories. The body is stand by me a coming of age story. The Shawshank Redemption is a prison drama. The Apt pupil is about a sociopathic kid blackmailing a Nazi to hear story's he wouldn't in school and turning into a multiple murderer. There all in the collection Different Seasons.
I read "she was right" and was worried it was going to somehow justify her crappy actions, but somehow you managed to find a theory that makes the horror even greater.
Dude, even a decade later, that ending still fucking hurts. I love your analysis that it was a necessary sacrifice. Never thought of that. It holds water. My toxic trait is knowing how this movie ends, but thinking this time it will be different.
Me too, that ending affected me so strongly and still does all these years later. The theory that Billy's death helped clear the Mist and save everyone else brings some relief. But the idea of David having to live the rest of his life with the memory of what he did is...just...awful.
For as many times as I've seen this, I have never thought about it in this way (and laughed all along the way as well, your commentary is outstanding).
Read the screenplay for ‘Storm of the Century’. The demon Legion in that dupes people into sacrifices to “save themselves” and the entire point of the story is that getting people to sacrifice others to save themselves is *actually* the evil they wish to inflict to gain power… It doesn’t really “save” anyone and it definitely doesn’t make the townspeople “right” for doing so either. Pennywise also would use this tactic on his dupes occasionally. He’d still end up killing them, too, because Pennywise *and* the Crimson King feed off the fear of others’ self-preservation instincts (also: see ‘Insomnia’.) We don’t even see if the people in the grocery store survived…
After the Walking Dead, i half expected Carol to bake the monsters some cookies, then pull a machine gun outta her sleeve and start having the Mist looking at the flowers.
Dude,you just blew my mind!I always wondered why didn't they just wait a few days until starvation started taking over then make the fatal decision to end it.But they ultimately were hopeless so it wouldn't have mattered.
I also noticed they chose to leave him one bullet shy of offing himself....he mercifully ended these people from whatever lied in wait in the mist, then had to carry that decision PLUS his fate with whatever the mist had in store for him. thats a nasty little plot line right there...but very memorable.
I still prefer to wait those few minutes. There was an episode of The Twilight Zone or the Outer Limits; in which a group of mountain climbers witness sudden darkness in the middle of the day. They end up concluding that the end of the world is about to issue, and they need a sacrifice to save all things. They draw lots and kill one of their number, a young woman if I remember rightly. A few minutes sfter she dies , the sun seems to return. As they're congratulating themselves on saving the world; a radio broadcast announces that the Earth had been passing through a cloud of cosmic dust and now was completely past it. The sun's light would have returned anyway. All they had to do was wait.
Your theory was well founded. It caused me to realize that Carmody may not have been the voice of "God" but a tool of "Satan". She was not predicting, she was CAUSING the events.
I'm not too familiar with King's work specifically, but the trope of a character claiming to be a prophet led by God actually being led astray by the other side is a pretty common trope.
Doesn't the Bible literally say false prophets will cause miracles, like surviving impossible odds? There's also the fact that she encouraged human sacrifice, which is, at least according to the Christian narrative, a huge no no. So naturally, anyone in an apocalypse scenario calling for that isn't working for Yahweh.
That explanation made a ton of sense in the context of Darabont’s ending. I’ll admit, having read ‘The Mist’ more than a few times before watching the film, Darabont’s ending made me angry. I couldn’t understand how the army could have cleared the mist and killed all the beasties, considering how widespread the mist was. I mean there were a TON of horrifying things in the mist, including the enormous fellow that walked above their car. I was always like “AW COME ON!!”. It just wasn’t plausible to me that the army could have gotten rid of THAT thing. Now though I can see how it really works, if you accept that Mrs C was right and she was somehow channeling a higher power (King refers to it as ‘other directed’ in The Stand). As you’ll know, the book has Mrs C as an older woman with crazy-old-lady energy, so Marcia Gay Harden’s portrayal was clearly intended to make her more of a serious character rather than a trope. Darabont’s version does a great job of implying that there was more to the mist than it just being a random occurrence. He also makes it clearer that the Arrowhead Project was definitely the reason for the mist, which is only hinted at in the book. So yeah, great video 👍 I found your channel through my recommended (thanks TH-cam algorithm 😁) and I’ve watched all of your videos, AND subscribed, AND even enabled notifications (which I never do because they annoy me). So Happy New Year from over here in Scotland and I look forward to your next video 😀
Love these long comments, because I normally do the same thing. 😂 I was always so mad at the ending too until I found out about Darabonts reasoning behind it and it all clicked into place. That plus the fact I am now half way done with the final book in the dark tower series, I knew something bigger had to be going on in the story and universe. Which of course lead to this video. One of these days I'll have to come visit Scotland. Years back my family traced our name way back in history all starting in Scotland. That's why it's polterGIBBSt, just removed the geis.
They didn't need to get rid of the bigger ones because they were not a threat, they were intelligent, the smaller ones that cause all the deaths are just like insects on earth, they are just feeding on whatever they can find, they opened a portal to another planet, the inhabitants of the planet just walked on through the portal and carried on what they normally do, I don't see any religious implications in this story, it might be different in the book, I've never read it, the film is very much like the game half life
According to IMDB the original novel was the inspiration for Half Life. Guess I'm going to have to play it. Got it and 2 on PC and haven't played either yet.
I haven't read it yet. Used to get it confused for his short story called Mile 81. Which I'm pretty sure was the first thing I ever read from King. But I still have a long list to read of his stuff, but I did read 7 or 8 of his novels this year and a lot of short stories.
I always thought the military opened some kind of rift to another dimension and the mist was the atmosphere from that world. The creatures crossed through the portal and had to stay within the mist so they could breath. Melissa just got lucky and happened to walk the right path to avoid the creatures. The mist dissipated because the portal was closed. The ending had no meaning to me, it just felt like it was designed to shock you kind of like the twists in those M. Night Shyamalan movies that had come out around that time. I never read the book though so I could be way off.
THIS... everything in here is "Let me Look back and make a Bunch of Fancfiction connections" its all pretty flimsy IMO. In the Book its implied that the Mist Does end and the world is doomed there No suddenly the Mist Clears..it just ends with the Suicides.
@@AlbertoMartinez765 Nah this is better than the ambiguous ending in the book. It isn't just shock value it really ties off the themes of the film and doesn't let the audience off the hook.
That is pretty accurate, from what I remeber it's pretty much hinted at they opened a rift into the darkness of the macroverse and that's where these creatures are from.
Yep. Some people are over-thinking it. I think it just showed that some people are nuts. I also thought the ending was kind of funny in a dark humour way. Spoiler alert about the book... ...The book doesn't have an actual ending. It just sort of stops at the end of a chapter, with no conclusion.
This is probably one of my favorite movies. The ending is so unlike anything else I've seen. Oh and you're fast becoming one of my favorite TH-cam movie reviewers. You do a really good job. Keep up the good work.
The ending always gets to me bro, that hopeless scream with tears loading up in his eyes, such an impactful moment that seals the movies ending perfectly
The mist really does a good job of preying on everyone’s phobias, wasps, tentacles, spiders, fire, irrational zealotry, it preys on the human shadow, all of our weakest traits and dares us to wonder if we could remain strong enough to endure on the arc, as the grocery store represents a port in the storm, without losing ourselves.
I lived with Nathan Gamble for a year, he’s a cool dude, didn’t mention acting until I wanted to watch this movie, he was kinda weird about it, but eventually went along. Then when he showed up on screen my jaw dropped
Yeahhh but for what it’s worth, Nathan agrees with your interpretation, that it was their deaths that caused the Mist to disappear. He said the director never confirmed it even to the cast, but still. I still send him pictures when the fog where I live gets thick and tell him to steer clear of his dad
Never thought about your explanation of the last 4 having to go/the last 4 bullets had to be used but NOW THAT I THINK OF IT - Mrs. Carmody called for the sacrifice of the boy child, and as soon as the boy child was 'removed from the equation', the mist dissipated. So perhaps it always had to be the removal of the child after she 'prophesied' it.
And after doing some more reading since this video, it wouldn't be a far fetched idea that this was all to get rid of Billy. There's other stories where that exact thing happens because of the bigger bad... Wild stuff for sure 😅
This theory is missing a *LOT* of information though… First, Melissa McBride survives. She’s on the back of one of the trucks at the end. “Don’t go out there. It’s the end of days!” really loses its mojo when one of the first people to leave survived the entire time until David shoots everyone else. Second, David is a “non-believer.” He survives and yet, the “end of days” still halts? That’s a pretty big flaw in Mrs. Carmody’s routine. Third… We don’t even know if everyone else in the store (the “believers”) are still alive by the end of the movie. I feel like this theory is really missing the forest for the trees.
@@galactic_socialist true. And I think this will be the problem with trying to connect all the Stephen king stories together. I'll probably have to just do movies and then tv shows and then the actual books. Since they mostly work together but also so many movies take a hard turn on the endings King wrote.
@@christianc.christian5025 sounds like you didn't watch to the end. Your first point is there and explains why, how, and even mentions the Crimson King. Also never said non-believer but doubters. David didn't doubt there was something, death, in the mist from the very beginning. And on the last point I do know that Darabont wanted to have also have all the people from the store in the back of the army truck. But due to scheduling conflicts he couldn't get them back out so he dropped it and just showed McBride instead. This still doesn't mean any of this theory is right or anything. Just that the more I think about it the less holes it has. But that's also probably because King has written SO MANY books you could probably have an answer to any question that deals with his stories.
The Mist, along with possibly The Descent (see it with the English version ending, not the sanitised American one) are the most heartbreaking horror movies I've ever seen. Durabont has always done the best adaptations of King's work, he gets you in the heart and does not pull his punches. I recommended The Mist to a friend who is a horror aficionado - along with a warning that it would have her in tears - and she still hasn't forgiven me!
Totally agree. I hate endings like this because we all want a happy ending. But, I love them for the surprise and shock. This was a tough ending to accept and I love the movie for it.
Well this channel is new to me at 60 years old I never did much exploring of You Tube ,but I really enjoyed this and I enjoyed the film a lot too ,YOU however just caused the biggest resounding CLANG as the giant penny dropped and realization set it . I love the way you thought this through and made the whole thing even creepier than it was in the first place .Thanks for this I will be checking out more of your work to see if there is something I can argue a point or two over for the fun of it .Hope you carry on with your work as I am loving it so far .
The mist, a movie I saw as a teenager and one I’ll stop to watch once in a blue moon, great breakdown! Never thought of the movie this way, and it makes me want to read into Stephen kings work even further like you talked about!
The story this is based on is a good one. But I think 'The Shining' is a good one to start with. First book I read of his and does a good job of laying out the "powers" a lot of people have in his books. The Dark Tower series really just brings it all together and connects the complete universe.
@@PolterGibbst can you do a breakdown on dark city? It’s a movie I watched as a child and I remember that movie being very interesting, reminds me of a literal darker version of momento. Let me know if you’ve seen it and what you think
@@DunnHere haven't seen it. Added it to my list though, but sadly it isn't streaming anywhere currently. So I'll have to see if I can find it somewhere.
Thank you for not spoiling it. I have read 'The Shining' and only 100-200 pages into 'IT' I know about the cosmic battle of pure evil and those who shine but from what I know and see that just the tip of the iceberg. The Mist, 1408, Cujo were all moives I watxhed a lot as a kid. But now I really need to read The Mist and 1408
I wouldn't want to rob anyone of the journey and all the discoveries along the way. Even though someone thought it was funny to spoil the ending for me, but I finished the Dark Tower series and loved it. I also started with The Shining, and still think it is the best book to get introduced to "the power system" in Kings books. Next book I read was The Gunslinger (first of the Dark Tower). But the more you read the more it all makes sense. And amazingly it looks like everyone that has read a lot of King completely agreed with this whole thing. So I can definitely say it does go much much deeper. Also The Mist is in the short story collection Skelton Crew. And 1408 is in Everything's Eventual. If you do go looking for them.
Nope. Don't care what anyone says. This movie has always been about not giving up hope no matter how bleak it is. It's pretty much the Sci-Fi version of Shawshank to me. The real monsters being right there with you the whole time.
I'm so glad people are still talking about this movie and its fanbase continues to grow. I saw this in the theater with my friend. At the end, the entire audience went dead silent, except for my friend who was cackling like a raving lunatic.
@@HeatherHolt Awesome indeed. When we went to go see Congo, he shouted in an outraged voice at the opening, "Hey, there wasn't any music in the book!!!"
Their friend sounds like one of those people that tries to hide their discomfort through being loud and obnoxious. I know everyone copes differently, but when your cope annoys other people that’s not cool...
@@AbeusMaximus He laughed because he thought it was funny in a darkly cynical way. Comedy is wholly subjective, and genuine laughter is perfectly acceptable at the theater.
Holy freaking crap this is a brilliant theory and it has given me an entirely new outlook, and a whole new respect, for the movie "The Mist." Thank you for your insightful and fascinating take on this movie and on the themes and underlying symbolism going on in it
While I respect and appreciate your take on the film, mine differs significantly. That said, I think we can both agree that this is a beautifully crafted and well executed tale of horror!
She was just crazy and they changed the ending from the book. In the book and in the movie Mrs. Carmody is just the collective madness that can creep up from Charismatic leaders. The irrational fear that crops up and people just look to someone with the answers.
Just found your channel today since I was recommended the 1408 analysis. Definitely becoming one of my favorite horror movie channels. Love the content, keep up the great work!
That's crazy to me. 😂 That's only because I've made the same comments before to other people that I watch. But I'm am very grateful, and luckily I have a whole list of videos to do. Probably going to record another one tonight so I can actually get ahead of schedule... or try to atleast. 😅
After your explanation, I've never thought about the connection and it blew my mind. If it counts what the lady said. "We want the kid" and right after he's killed the mist began to dissappear, because de couldn't have the kid's body to influence like the lady.
How is that possible? Not even the red queen could close the gaps, and she is more powerful than the crimson king or any of the anti-beams. Not even the artist could do that, and he was the strongest being in all of the king novels.
It's basically the same scenario as "God and the surgeon." A dying person is saved with surgery. Believers would thank God, humanists would thank the surgeon. The movie's narrative errs on the side of of the humanist, though the symbolism is more religious.
The end of this movie is so amazing, it’s so dark and I’m glad to see movie makers taking chances with dark endings which people usually hate. I like the idea that bc the kid was offed, the mist disappeared but since the mom and her kids were already being driven in the truck main buddy sees drive by, and the soldiers have clearly been out offing monsters for more than the few min it’s been since main buddy offed his kid… idk. It was already being fixed before he sees the soldiers drive by. Which was before he offed his kid. But that’s an interesting idea! And I love out of the box thinkin. I enjoy seeing themes of how religious delusion can take over in times of fear and uncertainty.
Omfg I get so happy when I find channels like yours, where it's a person, and not a narrative ai, and the person is actually a fan! Also, did you know that in most cultures, poltergeists aren't really spirits, but more of bottled up, very negative/hateful emotions that manifest and usually target the victim of said feelings and anyone/thing that gets in their way? And it normally has to be reeeeeally strong to stay around after said person leaves/dies, either the victim, or the holder of the feelings. If it's toward the house itself, walls and trees have memories and mirrors and bodies of water are like supernatural cameras 🙃
you really just blew my mind with your last theory about Billy being able to do stuff to you know who so he had to do all this just to get rid of him, it makes so much sense, damn, you just made this movie even better than it already was thank you so much
Man I rewatched this movie on your recommendation to do so. I had seen it before, but it had been 17 years ago. After rewatching, and watching your deep dive, I really enjoy your take on the movie. Well done!
Thanks for your contribution to my ever-growing interest of this movie. Definitely worth a like and a discussion. I just wish the writers of these kind of flicks would come out like maybe 3-5 years after the movie's release and just flat out tell us what exactly was going on instead of having to hypothesize about it hahahahha.
I have an alternate theory that I feel is played out. She says that the boy must be sacrificed. Moments after he kills the boy the mist disappears. That might not be the intent, but it certainly is a hell of a coincidence.
That's exactly where I thought he was going with his theory as well. Less about the 4 bullets having to be used and more about the fact that theist wants this child to be sacrificed and once he is them all is well. Like if they would've just gave him up in the store as awful as it is, it would've all ended there. Since everything else she said came thue & that's what ended her talking at all that was the purpose. And I don't see a connection to Shawshank at all. Yeah they lost hope & hope is everything but is that enough to say they are connected? Maybe in a small way that connects all his books but not in a way pertinent to this story.
@@chrystalmcatee6224 I can see the idea that it was the BBEG in The Dark Tower trying to eliminate the boy, but I think that's even a stretch. But then again, there's a lot of references to The Dark Tower so maybe that part flies. The problem is when you have stories written out before The Dark Tower, such as Shawshank, and then he retroactively has to make them fit into the overarching Dark Tower universe without retconning it all too badly.
Liked & subscribed. Your theory about Mrs. Carmody makes a great deal of sense. I have a fan theory of my own that could be consistent with it, in which I argue that the reprensentation of her as a Christian fanatic is off the mark. Rather, I submit, at one time she may have been a Christian--not a fanatic, but a relatively normal one. However, that all changed forever many years back, the day a scruffy old stranger wandered into her shop, the Brighton Antiquary, carrying a dusty satchel filled with various curios. Mrs. Carmody started sorting through the items and found a few of passing interest, including a translucent green alabaster box that had some carvings of what looked to be some obscure alphabet, a wood statue depicting a creature so bizarre & unnatural in appearance that she found it utterly revolting and concluded that the artist who fashioned it must be a patient in some lunatic asylum, and beneath the clutter lay a book bound in a pale leather: It looked to be seveal hundred years old, was partiy in Latin & partly Greek, illustrated with Medieval woodcuts that depicted wizards casting spells, and summoning weird winged creatures similar to the statue; on the book's cover the title _Necronomicon._ Frankly, Mrs. Carmody wasn't so sure any of her customers would have much of an interest in buying these curios, save, perhaps, for the alabaster box. She only relented to making the purchase when the old man's asking price was ridiculously low. After closing for the day, she took them back to her home to clean. Tired, she plunked down into a recliner, and picked up the book (an accursed grimoire, it turns out) to skim through it. This is something she'd do with some regularity, because while the other items found their way out onto the store shelves, for some reason unbeknownst to her, she felt compelled to keep it at her house for further perusal. This would prove her undoing, as Mrs. Carmody was unwittingly growing in closer and closer contact with Abholos, the Great Old One known as the Devourer in the Mist, and according to one account, a spawn of Cthulhu. The effect of the contact was that Abholos was able to telepathically implant a malignant mind parasite into her brain to do his bidding. He's her new "god", and it is he that demands human sacrifices, an order to which she is all too happy to help facilitate. Although the opening of the interdimensional portal was largely due to the Army project, _how_ was it due? In the following, I blend fact and fiction: Could someone such as Temple of Set occultist and Colonel Michael Aquino--also involved in Army Intelligence--have sabotaged the project to bring about the Age of Set through a Dark Working? Might Mrs. Carmody been assisting this effort without any free will in the matter? That's my story and I'm sticking to it! 😏
I never watch scary movies, but 2 days after I watched this, the thickest mist I've ever seen surrounded my house. Nothing could be seen outside the windows. FREAKIEST DAY EVER. Even the town I live in now is known for having thick mist, but I've never experienced it that thick, since then. The timing was soooooooooooooooooooooo weird! But I left some windows open, to prove to myself that I was not scared of make-believe.
The moral of the story is to never give up hope, because no matter how bad things seem, help might be right around the corner, and better days might be ahead. In the book, there was also a letter found at the end of the story with one word written on it: "Hope."
I was just recommended this video and it was awesome! The Mist and The Stand are among my favorite King stories so I've had the same theories on this ending. I enjoy watching "First Time Watching" videos just to see reactions to the ending.
For those unfamiliar, the Arrowhead Project in The Mist, which is loosely connected to The Shop (King’s version of the CIA, also seen in Firestarter and other works) was working on interdimensional access experimentation. They accidentally tore open a door, or “Thinny” (a place where the membrane between worlds is thinnest), into what is called Todash Space (the infinite void in between worlds). It is from there that the mist and the creatures came (you might recognize the “Lobstrosities”, what killed Ollie, as the creatures that attacked Roland on the beach in The Drawing of the Three). From there, entities such as the Crimson King (whom Randall Flagg works for) can exert a level of influence upon certain “more unstable types” such as Miss Carmody, much like the deceptively, seductive whispers of the Old Gods of Lovecraft, which these characters would interpret as being from the god they believe in.
I am SO, SO PROUD OF YOU!!! The first video I saw of you was the movie “1408” and my comment was, “Your commentary is really good, but my man, your camera.” This video was awesome. And you’re extremely knowledgeable about Stephen King. “Pan’s Labyrinth” isn’t one of his. It’s Guillermo del Toro. Which would be an awesome Segway to another review. That or “Whiplash.” Also, MY MAN! Your mic!!! ❤
😂 yeah, that old webcam was what you would get from Wal-Mart for $10. But when starting out you gotta do what you gotta do. Actually just upgraded camera again after this Christmas, actually be able to shoot in 4k if I wanted to. Originally I had a whole like minute talking about the paintings. 😅 they are all done by the Drew Struzan I showed briefly. I believe he did around 150 super famous movie posters and this was just a few of his. Anyway, thank you. Getting it figured out, and more and more people seem to be jumping on board.
I felt your pain about accidentally getting something spoiled for you. So many times I've been watching a television show & decided to look up one small thing & accidentally had the ending spoiled for me.
20:21 There are various interpretations on the myth of Pandora’s Box. Some say the box held Hope as the one instrument man could use against all the evils that were unleashed into the world when the box was opened. However, other interpret Hope as an evil in that it gives you the perception that you can change things that are beyond your control thus leading to disaster.
Please, anyone who see's this, for the love of Gan and the memory of the Kingdom of Gilead just do as Polter suggests and READ THE DARK TOWER SERIES!!! Fantastic video man.
Let me start by saying, I never once thought that Mrs. Carmody was wrong because I was huge King fan and had seen the film Carrie--even read the book later. Like the Mist's Mrs. Carmody, Mrs. White was 100% correct ('They're all gonna laugh at you'; 'Witch, got Satan's power'); Mrs. Carmody said that the Mist would clear away if the little boy (Billy) was sacrificed, and he was and it did. I thought--until today--I was the only one who saw this. I am surprised, however, that you did not mention the Carrie connection. One last thing, you did not mention which book in the saga you were currently on, but let me just advise you...put it away, and don't press on. Don't press on, if you want to look back in fondness on what you have already read.
😨 don't know why but I got chills as I read the last part... because I did just read the last part. Probably finished about the time you made this comment... But it was always about the journey, even when everyone tells us to turn back. My 10 year journey of reading may be done, but at the same time it's like it's only just begun. Mainly since I've not been asked by a quite a few people to attempt to connect all of the King movies and shows... maybe this will be my own tower.
@PolterGibbst great video man! I remember the first time I read the ending to the dark tower series. It left me absolutely speechless and screwed up. It also made me immediately want to pick up the gunslinger again and go on that journey again. Been through it 3 times since and everytime I get more from it
@@travdoggiedogg5525 I'm honestly relieved on how it ended. Had someone spoil the ending here in the comments the day before I finished reading it. But even after blocking the troll, I was glad to have King remind me that it was about the journey. Otherwise I think I would have died from the spoiler. 😂
you really think that when the boy died the military just magically appeared behind them? or does it make sense that military was already clearing a path to them before he even his life was taken?
Thank you I loved this movie and had no Idea how in-depth the lore went! Great job explaining it, never even realized "my life for him" was quoted in that movie either.
Thank you. It's funny because at first I couldn't find it. Even knowing she said it I had to rewatch it just to figure out where. Otherwise I feel like the theory wouldn't hold up as well, but clearly there it was. Sort of brought it all together nicely.
You brilliant bastard. You absolute genius. I can't believe I never even had the notion the ending wasn't bad timing, but a required sacrifice. I don't believe you're wrong about this, and I'm so impressed with your reasoning.
I view the ending more like the ending to War of the Worlds. The Military opened a portal and from that portal spawned the mist, and the rift allowed monsters to pass through regardless of size as it made a bleed effect. But when the military closed it they cut off the continued progression but what was here was here already. The ending of the movie shows that the mist was not remaining, it was thinning out, breaking down in our air and dissolving. So the creatures were dying as their air vanished. The old crazy lady was mentally ill, spouting out random things that seem prophetic but were common sense to anyone who took a minute to think about it. They gave her words power by putting belief into it and in Kings work belief is a powerful tool. The people in the car believed it was hopeless, so it was. But after it all when he had given up hope and was letting whatever happened next happen, it let the mist fade completely because his hopelessness was not fueling it anymore.
The Arrowhead Project is a military experiment performed in Shaymore, apparently intended to create a trans-dimensional window with which to peer through into other dimensions.
Another important aspect of The Mist is that nobody in the store is keen on fighting back against the monsters, even though they're all clearly shown to be weak to ordinary weapons, and the military seemingly has little issue clearing them out. All they ever had to do was fight back. Instead, they gave into fear and paranoia and assumed the monsters were an unstoppable force simply because they were alien and huge. And because they THOUGHT they were unbeatable... they were.
As someone who has read many Stephen King novels including The Dark Tower and The Stand youre explanation makes so much sense. Specifically when taken in context to The Dark Tower. Which really does link everything in the Stephan King universe.
I'm just glad everyone that has actually read his stuff see where I'm coming from and pretty much agrees. Those who haven't read any of it though want to argue about it. 😅 Hard to explain any of it in detail without them having any prior knowledge or without just telling them multiple King stories, spoilers and all.
This is actually a really cool theory and it has some solid stuff backing it. Would be interested seeing how the director/writer feel about it. Great video! This was the first one of yours I've come across so definitely getting a sub from me.
I remember seeing this in theaters. And boy, were people pissed about the ending. Understanding this, thanks to your coverage. It makes so much more sense.
Another fun fact about the ending is if you notice the groups of soldiers you can see the mother who left in the very beginning of the movie and to the fog by herself is actually reading and the back of the trucks with a soldiers. Meaning of these single mother by herself with no protection and no weapon was spared by the monsters. So yeah people assuming but be fog and the monsters leaving as soon as the four at the end they're shot is just the military. Completely missed the point.
Yes... guess you didn't read all the text at the end of the video. I showed her. And explained why, how, and even mention the Crimson King himself. No shame or anything, it's literally after the outro and is like the last 5 seconds of the video, had to throw it in for a fun fact. Extra Fun Fact: Darabont wanted to also have the people from the store be in the back of the trucks too, but because it was after all of them were done filming it was going to be too big of a headache to get everyone out for a small thing like that. So they dropped it. That would have been... even more sad if you ask me.
You're forgetting the defenseless old woman who was killed by the spider things when she left the store with the others to get in the truck. Why wasn't she spared , according to your theory? And why would the monsters decide not to kill a lone woman , having no idea whether she had children or not , but decide it was okay to kill a man who clearly had a child? This idea seems pretty weak upon examination.
@@subliteralbecause in the realm of life certain things don’t make sense. People also explained it might be because she lived with faith/hope of finding her child
Its shown in the ritual of chuud, those who never lose hope are watched over by maturin, and as his wooden obelisk isnt broken yet he still can affect the prime world. He isnt a being of the beam, he is the existence of the beam. The other, the primm, the tower, even the dandaloos have to obey the laws of maturin.
She was sanctified and performing a noble deed . She wouldn't make a good blood sacrifice . Killing her wouldn't add to the chaos . Odds are that the " monsters " didn't even know she had left the store . This all occurred before the crazy lady started channeling the " old God's " . Therefore , her screaming " your gonna die out there " was conjecture , not a prophecy . JMO
Going off the book, the creatures have to hunt by smell since the mist obstructs visually and soundwise. So taking that into account, with all the people bleeding and dying or sweating their pheromones, all she had to do was stay calm and quiet.
Remember the Mist! is able to nagivate move from one place to the other. Like in the begining we can see it was moving and coming from the mountains until it got to town. So i always thought when he killed them and got out of the car, around that same time the mist was moving completely away like sort of in the same direction the HUGE creature was walking towards. U know. To me it looked like that huge creature was following the direction of the mist. Me personally i dont think it was the military that clear the mist out & made it go away. I think, the mist moved out of that town OR it disapeared forever?. And the army clearly were cleaning the mess that was left behind?. Im still intrigued about something. Ok so when the military were experimenting. How huge was the portal and did the mist started coming out of it like a fog machine and the creature as well?. How did that huge one got through?. Is the portal still open?. Can the creatures survive without the mist?. And if the mist is still alive moving from that town to another place, where would end up next? and how can they stop it?. If the mist moves on a ocean can the creatures swim, float or walk on water or levitate with the mist?. Can u jump into the portal and go to their world?. etc... Gosh so many questions and intrigued thoughts.
I always thought of it like one of those science experiments with the volcano. Because I believe the base where the experiment was being done was up in the mountains and it basically came flowing out and covered the town and then continued on to who know how far. I can't answer all the questions since I haven't read all the books and even that may not have all the answers. But I do know the big bad would throw his enemies into the todash space to be eaten by monsters. So you can go through the portal into their world. And the only other spot I know of that this happened was basically a huge crater/canyon in the earth. Definitely big enough for the big creatures to walk through no problem. I doubt the creatures can float in the mist. Some can fly, but most just seem like twisted and giant versions of animals and insects that would be in our world. And I'm not sure if the can survive outside the mist, maybe for a little while. That may explain why the piece of the tentacle David cut off turned into a weird liquid when the group went to look at it. So it could be like their own little atmosphere, and die without it. It makes me wonder how much can be know from the rest of the books. Maybe one of these days I'll have read enough for it all to make perfect sense.
Ok I really love how deep your thoughts are going here 😂 especially about how you mention if it goes over water do the critters fall in lol I love it when people go down mental rabbit holes like me
@@HeatherHolt me too. The rabbit holes are the best places to be. 😂 I'm currently working on another video about Shutter Island and this rabbit hole is super deep. May end up being my longest video, but we will see.
i don't recall exactly how king described the 'thinny' in wizard & glass, but i think it was less an open portal with defined edges, and more a place where there was still a thin membrane of mid-world's reality (hence, thinny) separating it from the other dimensions. basically, it will accommodate the size of anything capable of surviving the hop from one reality to another.
You established great rapport with this video intro, better be worth it!!!😂 Updated: Now that you mentioned it, the lines do connect on your hypothesis. I still like the if they only waited interpretation.
Well, that was a happy accident coming across this page. Absolutely brilliant explanation of the story, the addition of other King tropes was spot on. Always wondered what happened to Randall Flagg. Thank you for rebooting my interest.
![SAFEPLANET - ดาวเคราะห์ [ THE PLANET ]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/4X1XL3I_k3c/mqdefault.jpg)
I want to see a Wendigoon collab with this dude
Me Too 😂. Me wendi and GG, hopefully hopefully one of these days
Me too. He and Wendigoon have a very similar regional accent and a really calm friendly way of discussing horror...😊
@@daniellewillis2767 it's funny because I've actually talked to Mista GG in the last couple days.
So who knows, may be talking about this comment in a year or two with the Wendigoon himself. 🤞
I noticed in the wiki entry about todash space it refers to the old ones...is there a link to the eldrich beings of the lovecraft universe?
@@PolterGibbst
@@suicidebylifestyle9267 so I'm not sure but it is definitely inspired by Lovecraft. King was inspired by Robert Browning's poem 'Child Roland to the Dark Tower Came' for his whole Dark Tower series. And I know he has talked about being inspired by H.P. before. So I wouldn't be surprised if it was a direct tie in, but I haven't read enough to say one way or the other yet.
Melissa decided to brave out the mist, kept her hopes high about finding her children, and she managed to rescue them. I believe that seeing them safe and sound in the ending is basically the writer telling us "Yeah, that's what would've happened if you hadn't lost hope".
I've been told by some commenters down below she originally dies in the book. My point still remains. The movie director, not the book writer, is the one sending the message.
Exactly! She even offered to anyone in the store to go with her, they thought it was death but that would have been their safest choice in the end.
Plus I just love that whole scene, Melissa did amazing and delivered the best lines of the movie.
This is what I got from watching the Mist, the first time.
I'd love to see a parody skit where she does all these silly things and kills off the creatures, like accidentally tripping a giant creature, moving out of the way of the acid spiders to have them spray onto the flyers, etc.
She went on true faith, not propaganda. The other lady was talking out of the side of her neck. If she believed in what she believed in, she had a left with her now. That's faith
@@dozier-bd7gt Think that's why she was the only one not influenced. BUT I do think David would have done the same if Billy was at home. He definitely would have walked a lady home, and we could have had a very different movie... and ending.
Ollie didn't die, after being pulled into the mist he endured a several hour, bare chested wrestling match with the monster until he choked it out. He's alive and now king of the monsters.
The Sherminator
Can confirm.
He went into the portal to get vengeance.
I can comfortably believe this thank you.
@@Frank-costanzathe mist monsters: why do I hear boss music?
Ollie: “rip … and …. tear”
I'll never forget seeing this movie in theaters as a kid and the entire audience cheering as soon as she got shot
The end of this movie made me laugh so loud in the theatre. It was just so unexpected and a very, "well, damn..." moment lol
I would like to point out that even if she was right, being right because youre listening to the whisperings of an evil eldritch entity doesn't necessarily make you "not crazy".
Sure is she evil and wrong? Of course, but shes literally hearing someone speak to her, if my mother abused me and made me kill animals, im not crazy, shes evil and manipulative. This lady is literally being manipulated by a god, I feel we can atleast say shes not crazy.
but it's a different crazy. a more psychopath crazy if the voices actually exist and you enjoy the killing...
Ok, let's pretend he's correct and Carmody really is hearing this voice telling her to kill people and she does because, from her perspective, it's God telling her to! Just because there is an actual voice telling her to kill innocent people, 1 being a small child, doesn't negate the fact that she's a fanatical nut job! So she's not crazy because the voices are really there, she's not imagining them, but she IS an absolute FRUIT CAKE for not just listening to them, but then doing what they tell her to do! Any SANE person is going to know that it's NOT OK to blame, essentially the army base janitor, for what's happening just because he was there and then decide to FEED HIM to the giant Lobstrosity! Then, once she gets a taste of being a leader, once they start to feed into her fanaticism and she begins to believe her own BS, she then says that they need to kill a SMALL CHILD who's only 'crime' would be having needed groceries on the day Mama Carmody decided to stop taking her meds! And now that more than of the people in this store have succumbed to mass hysteria, they are all ready go along with it.
I think a very telling line that shows just how out of touch with reality these people are is the lady that says "You murdered her!" To Ollie when he shots and kills Carmody. Not 10 seconds ago they were willing to rip this CHILD from his father's arms because Carmody said the voices told her to, but when they refuse to turn the kid over and kill her NOW it's murder? Yeah ok...
Evil? thats an interesting statement to make.. Everyones evil to someone else and we always consider something as the good of evil. The Walking Dead tv series, shows this so well. Rick's group are the protagonist but to everyone else they're a plague tearing its way through death leaving more death behind them.
@@wowgoml as the Fallout series says: everyone wants to fix the world, they just disagree on how.
that scream was so intense and it hits you in your soul at the end. yeah the mom had hope to see her children and she did. they had no hope left and that is what happened. I feel this.
Fear changes everything. That's the only constant and the only real motif of the film. No one was right, no one was wrong. It is nature taking its course, like a wildfire, as different people, gripped by fear deal with the inescapable effects of uncertainty and hopelessness.
Like a cult.
“No moral, no message, no prophetic tract, just a simple statement of fact: for civilization to survive, the human race has to remain civilized.” -Rod Sterling
One could be forgiven for assuming it’s a bit more than nature, when we are dealing with inter-dimensional creatures. While theoretically natural, the world of the mist has alot unexplained.
How do these bugs communicate with each other? Is it telepathy? Are theyindependent thinkers or a hive mind? Can the “queen bee” or “crimson king” influence people?
We just don’t know, and the movie doesn’t care to explain it.
The thing with Carmody wasn't that she was wrong, but that she was maniacal, dictorial, cruel, and murderous.
Much like the entities that were speaking through her
she was also wrong
Well, wasn't murder (sacrifice) the answer? The boy needed to die
@@heypistolero No, he didn't had to die.
The entire point of the sacrifice is that they ONLY MADE THE Shop at "free buffet" for the monsters. They KNEW there would be food in there and thus would stick around.
The entire point of the movie is that leaders like that are the real monsters. While the things in the mist are just that: things, animals. That are in the end no different than your Bear, Wolf, Spider, Shark.
The fact some people can actually defend the Crazy religious leader is just one more example of stupidity made manifest.
@@kuronyra1709 lol dude I'm just going off what the guy in the video said chill
I remember watching this movie in the theaters. Marcia is so talented and did a wonderful job playing a villain. That when she was killed, a group of people in the theater cheered.
That part where's she's talking to herself.... sooo scary. Absolutely fantastic performance.
I can't believe I put off watching this movie for so long... but I'm glad I'm watching it in 2024
My Dad and I went to the theaters for this movie also and about half the theater clapped when she was shot and one guy even yelled "ABOUT TIME!"
It’s incredible how people can hate a completely fictional character so much 😂
@@frankthetank8050 I think that's because our collective disgust with cult leaders is at an all time high.
Starkiller was there, and Captain Holt too! Truly an all-star cast. Man, this is awesome. You just made me like this movie so much more. I love lore.
And don’t forget The Punisher was there too!
Fun fact: Melissa Mcbride's character was supposed to die in the original script, David and his friends should have seen her on the ground at the end of the film when they were in the car. But apparently Melissa moved the actors and crew during her monologue, so the director decided to give much more importance to her character by making her survive the mist and the creatures.
Oh you know she tore apart whatever got in her way. She made it very clear nothing was going to get in her way to make sure her kids were safe.
@@zacharyhawley1693she unleashed carol
She lost sophia before. Now she won't fail this time.
I would love for a spin-off movie about her journey
So what you're saying is, in a crisis situation you need to make an emotionally moving speech so you'll get deus ex machina'd to survival. If you don't make it, that was only because your speech wasn't good enough.
Seeing a paladin driving out of the mist followed by all the armor, infantry and even air support is one of the biggest unexpected slaps in the face of any movie ever
I'll say this: I'm someone who actually gets compelled by spoilers, to watch something/read something/play something. Had I known about this ending way back when, I would've watched it a HELL of a lot sooner.
particularly when you read the novel ,and find out that a military lab caused it , buy opening a portal into another reality they could`nt close !
YES!
IMO, one of - if not THE BEST - movie endings😊
I always thought that the paladin coming out of the mist was a representation of a knight defeating the evil and unknown.
Especially wondering how the hell they got a Paladin in their army? Only question that remains is what level??
She is about as right as a person saying the ocean is dangerous. If you tell a dude he will die if he tries to swim across the Atlantic Ocean, it doesn't mean you can predict the future when he drowns.
You have sealed a brutal death for yourself. Congrats.
Yeah, she’s just a metaphor for religious people who rationalize things to fit their world-view. Stephen king always shits on Christians 😂. And thank god, because that nutty bitch did absolutely nothing good.
Just say you missed the point, it’s less words and the rest of us can pretend you didn’t comment
@@theonetrueoracle4525nah he's right, this is an asinine theory
@@WeWillAlwaysHaveVALIS yeah the movie is ANTI RELIGION, the lady is the villain, not a prophet.
Whether it was the sacrifice that pushed back the mist, or the army breaking through, that man has to live with the fact that hos family died by his hand. Even if he thinks later how Billy's death could have driven off the mist like she said, he can never be certain. All he can know is that the moment he gave up hope and put his family's blood on his hands, he was doomed to walk forward alone
Yep, most of this is all a theory of course, but that hopelessness is not. That was Darabonts goal and he succeeded in showing what it means to lose hope.
Well, his kid and some friends
Considering King's pension for inserting biblical references into his horror, i'm SURE it wasn't unintentional. So many things allign perfectly, and the concept of divination is NOT lost on stephen king's work. I truly believe that Mrs Carmody could see the future, or atleast parts of it. @@PolterGibbst
I mean, 100% that guy is going to go buy an extra bullet and off himself in a motel bathroom. No way he's living with killing his own son.
Bold of you to assume he is gonna live out his life.
If I were the main character I'd self delete at the earliest opportunity. Like going for a soldier's gun for example.
You are missing a key event in the movie that counters your argument about the Mist.
At the begin, just as the Mist comes in there is an air raid horn being used and afterwards a huge explosion. That explosion is the portal being destroyed.
Now the insects\monsters and the mist are on borrowed time and their demise is unavoidable...
They are like Mesozoic animals only times 100 like that walking leviathan we see at the end.
Why would the portal explode in a fiery explosion?
@@randallbesch2424 Humans demolish building larger than those monsters.
@@justicedemocrat9357 Yes, why would humans have a portal rigged to explode when they were researching potentially Earth ending dimensjons. Why have any safety features on such. How simple are you?
"That explosion is the portal being destroyed."
That's speculation, not a fact. We never see it in the film nor have anyone discuss it, thus never really know what happened. It is just as likely that the explosion is the system that provides containment around a thinny into todash space. Or something else entirely since we're just making stuff up.
Great video. I was left super bummed by the ending to this movie. It just seemed so unnecessaraly bleak. Your take makes it make sense. Good job!
Bleak?
Bleak for the protagonists.
_One_ kid died. And a couple hundred adults.
From a dimensional breach on the scale of Half-Life.
That's not bleak.
I saw this movie so many times in theater when I was like 19/20 the ending was super necessary what're you talking about lol. It's one of the most unforgettable movie endings of all time yes it was misery and cruel but it left an impression that's for sure. It's important to have a movie or story that shakes us to the core and is like nothing we've ever seen cuz it had the courage and confidence in their vision to tell it like this, it's true horror.
Every time I rewatch that movie I feel like Melissa "cursed" them in some way, as she asks for help and when they make excuses to not follow, it felt like the ending was them getting punished for their selfishness. Some brutally died, others lived with guilt and remorse. and jet her and her group survived without a single scratch and her kids are safe at her side.
I like this notion. Never really knew how to interpret the look she gives him when they see eachother
Maybe in a cruel twist of fate thats why David got to live, he was the only one you could argue wasnt being selfish since he had to prioritize his son? Twice 💀
Thinking the same. Mrs C. mentions "sacrifice" and maybe that is what the Mist wants: sacrifices. She also mentions that "the boy must be sacrificed". Once he is, the Mist disappears. I wonder if there is a separate story to the boy, some kind of prophecy or curse King and Darabond had in mind.
@@RPumpkinQueen you're just repeating what the video said, that's not even your thought.
Exactly. THANK YOU. Nobody seems to get this!
I went to my parents’ house a couple of years ago. They were watching this movie. Dad tells me it’s almost over. So I sat on the couch to watch with them. With only 10 minutes or so until the end. I will forever be haunted by those few moments of the movie. I have never actually watched the whole film.
Yeah don’t. Well made movie, that’s it. Not something a well balanced person watches more than once.
Don't watch the rest of it.
The movie really is SYFY channel shit. The ending is just such a cruel twist, that damn near every person insists that you see the movie just for that ending.
The CGI and acting are all daytime television at best.
God I loved that ending though. Movie could have been so much better.
@@nignamedmutt7270 No way. The acting in the film is perfect and the point, the monsters were secondary, to the human conflict. with advances in cgi, yeah it looks not up to snuff by today's standards, but this was a 2000s era movie.
@@AntiDecepticonCampaignRidiculous statement. Good films are worth rewatching, especially through an alternative lens, even if one ultimately isn't convinced by a different explanation.
There are worse films to watch the last 10 minutes of but I can't think of any right now.
Dude, there is enormous time, research, energy, involved in making this content and for that, I thank you. Keep it up boss, great stuff.
I just rewatched The Mist, and you were completely right. The whole movie is changed by carrying the Dark Tower theme foreshadowed in the opening shot. Carmody falling under the sway of the Crimson King and speaking her prophecies/spells makes so much sense. All of the spider creatures being there also connect to both the Crimson King and the todash space, and the ending looks completely different. Thank you for this.
IT also required sacrifices, involved spiders/otherworldly beings and had possessed individuals.
...but all that stuff didn't exist back then
@@Turahk SK has had his universe planned since like the 80's
I don't like the whole 'we didn't start the führer' cliché.
Carmody was 100% USDA cerified human Karen. No excuse.
@@Turahkhe's always planned it out. He just hadn't got there yet to explain things
I love this movie. My heart broke at the end. I and the person I was with were both stunned. We sat there for a while just trying to wrap our heads around it. Yes, the loss of hope was the biggest take away for me and the idea that when faced with a catastrophic event, humans lose their minds. The sacrifice angle, though, never even saw that and it makes sense and now truly fits into King's style, good vs evil. Wow....just wow. Subscribed.
Man, as soon as you showed what he was painting in the beginning I knew where this video was going. And honestly, I can't believe I missed it. I'm a huge Stephen King fan and love the little details across his stories that link them together. You've also made me rethink about some of his other stories I never would have linked. Insomnia, for example, completely changes with these links.
My cousin's boyfriend went to school with SK. They used to go camping together. One of his favorite stories to tell about SK was how they came back to their cabin once on a foggy day to find the whole place crawling with praying mantises.
The first time I read The mist and saw the film I thought back to being told about that camping trip in the late 80s.
Bruh that's crazy
If true this is nuts.
That scene in family guy where Stephen king gets hit by a car and he’s like “hey this would make a neat story”
@@H4V3N Who among us hasn't been hit by a car and thought "This would make a neat story"
I love the analysis and proposed alternative that the child had to die. But I think what is even more painful and real is how much of life is simply timing. The moments we miss out on because of our angst and the moments that we experience out of sheer luck. That’s why the ending was so profound for me.
Yes - u got it!🎉
Yup, you earned your like.
For years I was mad about the movie's ending because in no way in hell would you shoot your kid just because you thought that death was inevitable, you would still hold hope for them if not yourself but the explanation being that a sacrifice was necessary to end any further tragedy makes sense why only after their deaths did the mist finally disappear.
The movie isn't about just scary bugs, it's about a Lovecraftian evil from another dimension that goes beyond the physical, really makes me appreciate the movie so much more.
The military did not seem surprised by the mists evaporation, implying they were following a void within the mist.
Or, the guys at PortalHQ gave them the all clear.
“A team has managed to close the portal, the mist seems to be dissipating, move in.”
@@EvgeneXI this was my read. The source of the mist was gone, and it was dissipating starting at the center, and moving out.
The movie was over and it was time to wrap things up
The Cabin In The Woods control center indicates that these incursions require the sacrifice of innocents. 😱
@@marhawkman303 and if that’s true then the five in the car were probably driving away from the dissipating center of what was the mist, causing them to dwell in the mist a lot longer than they would have if the just stayed in town.
I've read all of the The Dark Tower, The Talisman, Black House, and several other books connected to the gunslingers and the Dark Tower. I never thought of how this story was connected, but this makes a lot of sense. The kid probably had potential to be a gunslinger, which made him a target. Mrs. Carmody acts like a lot of villains influenced by "The Red". She was probably little more than a puppet by the end. Seeing it from this perspective actually makes the movie a lot better to me, but I'm still not rewatching it because that ending is traumatizing.
Oh my God, I’ve never seen it. Now I’m dying to know the ending! To the Google machine!😂
ALL of kings books revolve around the dark tower, the dark man, and the gunslingers. Literally every single book hes written revolves around the dark towers
@@jessespencer6330 All?
The body? The Shawshank Redemption? The Apt pupil?
@@tamakunminnip2117yup, they all take place in some part of the multiverse which all connect to the tower, so even those ones that don't seem to have much to do with anything supernatural are still part of it.
@@jonnybarnard8578 there is nothing supernatural in any of those stories. The body is stand by me a coming of age story. The Shawshank Redemption is a prison drama. The Apt pupil is about a sociopathic kid blackmailing a Nazi to hear story's he wouldn't in school and turning into a multiple murderer. There all in the collection Different Seasons.
I read "she was right" and was worried it was going to somehow justify her crappy actions, but somehow you managed to find a theory that makes the horror even greater.
Dude, even a decade later, that ending still fucking hurts. I love your analysis that it was a necessary sacrifice. Never thought of that. It holds water. My toxic trait is knowing how this movie ends, but thinking this time it will be different.
Me too, that ending affected me so strongly and still does all these years later. The theory that Billy's death helped clear the Mist and save everyone else brings some relief. But the idea of David having to live the rest of his life with the memory of what he did is...just...awful.
For as many times as I've seen this, I have never thought about it in this way (and laughed all along the way as well, your commentary is outstanding).
Read the screenplay for ‘Storm of the Century’. The demon Legion in that dupes people into sacrifices to “save themselves” and the entire point of the story is that getting people to sacrifice others to save themselves is *actually* the evil they wish to inflict to gain power…
It doesn’t really “save” anyone and it definitely doesn’t make the townspeople “right” for doing so either.
Pennywise also would use this tactic on his dupes occasionally. He’d still end up killing them, too, because Pennywise *and* the Crimson King feed off the fear of others’ self-preservation instincts (also: see ‘Insomnia’.)
We don’t even see if the people in the grocery store survived…
After the Walking Dead, i half expected Carol to bake the monsters some cookies, then pull a machine gun outta her sleeve and start having the Mist looking at the flowers.
Technically, she must have done it when she was off screen. I mean, the apocalypse came to an immediate close at the end!! 😂
Mind blown. I never thought about Randall Flagg pulling the strings. Makes absolute sense within the "King universe." Great video.
Why would it be the man in black and not the crimson king? Flag has no power over the primm.
Dude,you just blew my mind!I always wondered why didn't they just wait a few days until starvation started taking over then make the fatal decision to end it.But they ultimately were hopeless so it wouldn't have mattered.
I think it made the movie better, atleast gives some reason to the tragedy and chaos
I also noticed they chose to leave him one bullet shy of offing himself....he mercifully ended these people from whatever lied in wait in the mist, then had to carry that decision PLUS his fate with whatever the mist had in store for him. thats a nasty little plot line right there...but very memorable.
I still prefer to wait those few minutes. There was an episode of The Twilight Zone or the Outer Limits; in which a group of mountain climbers witness sudden darkness in the middle of the day. They end up concluding that the end of the world is about to issue, and they need a sacrifice to save all things. They draw lots and kill one of their number, a young woman if I remember rightly. A few minutes sfter she dies , the sun seems to return. As they're congratulating themselves on saving the world; a radio broadcast announces that the Earth had been passing through a cloud of cosmic dust and now was completely past it. The sun's light would have returned anyway. All they had to do was wait.
I've never thought of this scenerio but I'm 100% convinced. It makes the ending a little easier to take.
Your theory was well founded.
It caused me to realize that Carmody may not
have been the voice of "God" but a tool of "Satan". She was not predicting, she was CAUSING the events.
You really should read The Dark Tower. There is a main antagonist in King's universe called The Crimson King which is a Satan-y character
Carmody: “and the locusts shall emerge in the night!”
Satan: “WRITE THAT DOWN! RIGHT THAT DOWN!!!”
I'm not too familiar with King's work specifically, but the trope of a character claiming to be a prophet led by God actually being led astray by the other side is a pretty common trope.
@@nuyabuisness7526
Christians in disaster movies.
Doesn't the Bible literally say false prophets will cause miracles, like surviving impossible odds? There's also the fact that she encouraged human sacrifice, which is, at least according to the Christian narrative, a huge no no. So naturally, anyone in an apocalypse scenario calling for that isn't working for Yahweh.
Well done, the King universe is so dense there needs to be an omnibus to refer to understand all the connections from book to book
That explanation made a ton of sense in the context of Darabont’s ending. I’ll admit, having read ‘The Mist’ more than a few times before watching the film, Darabont’s ending made me angry. I couldn’t understand how the army could have cleared the mist and killed all the beasties, considering how widespread the mist was. I mean there were a TON of horrifying things in the mist, including the enormous fellow that walked above their car. I was always like “AW COME ON!!”. It just wasn’t plausible to me that the army could have gotten rid of THAT thing.
Now though I can see how it really works, if you accept that Mrs C was right and she was somehow channeling a higher power (King refers to it as ‘other directed’ in The Stand). As you’ll know, the book has Mrs C as an older woman with crazy-old-lady energy, so Marcia Gay Harden’s portrayal was clearly intended to make her more of a serious character rather than a trope.
Darabont’s version does a great job of implying that there was more to the mist than it just being a random occurrence. He also makes it clearer that the Arrowhead Project was definitely the reason for the mist, which is only hinted at in the book.
So yeah, great video 👍 I found your channel through my recommended (thanks TH-cam algorithm 😁) and I’ve watched all of your videos, AND subscribed, AND even enabled notifications (which I never do because they annoy me).
So Happy New Year from over here in Scotland and I look forward to your next video 😀
Love these long comments, because I normally do the same thing. 😂
I was always so mad at the ending too until I found out about Darabonts reasoning behind it and it all clicked into place. That plus the fact I am now half way done with the final book in the dark tower series, I knew something bigger had to be going on in the story and universe. Which of course lead to this video.
One of these days I'll have to come visit Scotland. Years back my family traced our name way back in history all starting in Scotland. That's why it's polterGIBBSt, just removed the geis.
Any of you read the book From a Buick 8? It’s also a novel that explores the todash. It would make a nice sequel to The Mist
They didn't need to get rid of the bigger ones because they were not a threat, they were intelligent, the smaller ones that cause all the deaths are just like insects on earth, they are just feeding on whatever they can find, they opened a portal to another planet, the inhabitants of the planet just walked on through the portal and carried on what they normally do, I don't see any religious implications in this story, it might be different in the book, I've never read it, the film is very much like the game half life
According to IMDB the original novel was the inspiration for Half Life. Guess I'm going to have to play it. Got it and 2 on PC and haven't played either yet.
I haven't read it yet. Used to get it confused for his short story called Mile 81. Which I'm pretty sure was the first thing I ever read from King.
But I still have a long list to read of his stuff, but I did read 7 or 8 of his novels this year and a lot of short stories.
I always thought the military opened some kind of rift to another dimension and the mist was the atmosphere from that world. The creatures crossed through the portal and had to stay within the mist so they could breath. Melissa just got lucky and happened to walk the right path to avoid the creatures. The mist dissipated because the portal was closed. The ending had no meaning to me, it just felt like it was designed to shock you kind of like the twists in those M. Night Shyamalan movies that had come out around that time. I never read the book though so I could be way off.
THIS... everything in here is "Let me Look back and make a Bunch of Fancfiction connections" its all pretty flimsy IMO. In the Book its implied that the Mist Does end and the world is doomed there No suddenly the Mist Clears..it just ends with the Suicides.
@@AlbertoMartinez765 Nah this is better than the ambiguous ending in the book. It isn't just shock value it really ties off the themes of the film and doesn't let the audience off the hook.
@@AlbertoMartinez765 I also prefer the book. Directors really know how to destroy the source material. The Gunslinger movie was even more culpable.
That is pretty accurate, from what I remeber it's pretty much hinted at they opened a rift into the darkness of the macroverse and that's where these creatures are from.
Yep. Some people are over-thinking it. I think it just showed that some people are nuts. I also thought the ending was kind of funny in a dark humour way.
Spoiler alert about the book...
...The book doesn't have an actual ending. It just sort of stops at the end of a chapter, with no conclusion.
This is probably one of my favorite movies. The ending is so unlike anything else I've seen. Oh and you're fast becoming one of my favorite TH-cam movie reviewers. You do a really good job. Keep up the good work.
The ending always gets to me bro, that hopeless scream with tears loading up in his eyes, such an impactful moment that seals the movies ending perfectly
The mist really does a good job of preying on everyone’s phobias, wasps, tentacles, spiders, fire, irrational zealotry, it preys on the human shadow, all of our weakest traits and dares us to wonder if we could remain strong enough to endure on the arc, as the grocery store represents a port in the storm, without losing ourselves.
And the biggest fear of humans, the unknown
I lived with Nathan Gamble for a year, he’s a cool dude, didn’t mention acting until I wanted to watch this movie, he was kinda weird about it, but eventually went along. Then when he showed up on screen my jaw dropped
😂 I could see it being weird in the moment, then having to explain oh yeah I'm also in this movie. Would have been funny for a bit, until... the end 😅
Yeahhh but for what it’s worth, Nathan agrees with your interpretation, that it was their deaths that caused the Mist to disappear. He said the director never confirmed it even to the cast, but still.
I still send him pictures when the fog where I live gets thick and tell him to steer clear of his dad
@@judahbennett483 🤣 that's great. Probably just best to stay home on those days.
Never thought about your explanation of the last 4 having to go/the last 4 bullets had to be used but NOW THAT I THINK OF IT - Mrs. Carmody called for the sacrifice of the boy child, and as soon as the boy child was 'removed from the equation', the mist dissipated. So perhaps it always had to be the removal of the child after she 'prophesied' it.
That’s what I got from the video - she said the boy had to be sacrificed. And when he was, the mist disappeared.
And after doing some more reading since this video, it wouldn't be a far fetched idea that this was all to get rid of Billy. There's other stories where that exact thing happens because of the bigger bad...
Wild stuff for sure 😅
This theory is missing a *LOT* of information though…
First, Melissa McBride survives. She’s on the back of one of the trucks at the end. “Don’t go out there. It’s the end of days!” really loses its mojo when one of the first people to leave survived the entire time until David shoots everyone else.
Second, David is a “non-believer.” He survives and yet, the “end of days” still halts? That’s a pretty big flaw in Mrs. Carmody’s routine.
Third… We don’t even know if everyone else in the store (the “believers”) are still alive by the end of the movie.
I feel like this theory is really missing the forest for the trees.
@@galactic_socialist true. And I think this will be the problem with trying to connect all the Stephen king stories together. I'll probably have to just do movies and then tv shows and then the actual books. Since they mostly work together but also so many movies take a hard turn on the endings King wrote.
@@christianc.christian5025 sounds like you didn't watch to the end. Your first point is there and explains why, how, and even mentions the Crimson King.
Also never said non-believer but doubters. David didn't doubt there was something, death, in the mist from the very beginning.
And on the last point I do know that Darabont wanted to have also have all the people from the store in the back of the army truck. But due to scheduling conflicts he couldn't get them back out so he dropped it and just showed McBride instead.
This still doesn't mean any of this theory is right or anything. Just that the more I think about it the less holes it has. But that's also probably because King has written SO MANY books you could probably have an answer to any question that deals with his stories.
The Mist, along with possibly The Descent (see it with the English version ending, not the sanitised American one) are the most heartbreaking horror movies I've ever seen. Durabont has always done the best adaptations of King's work, he gets you in the heart and does not pull his punches.
I recommended The Mist to a friend who is a horror aficionado - along with a warning that it would have her in tears - and she still hasn't forgiven me!
I've never seen this movie, but the mist seems to be a thinny, letting monsters in from the Todash Darkness.
The end was FANTASTIC in my opinion, need endings like this to make happy endings have meaning.
Even SK liked the ending better than the ending he wrote.
Best ending ever😊
Totally agree. I hate endings like this because we all want a happy ending. But, I love them for the surprise and shock. This was a tough ending to accept and I love the movie for it.
Definitely a good point.
I liked it as well. It was sad but good.
Well this channel is new to me at 60 years old I never did much exploring of You Tube ,but I really enjoyed this and I enjoyed the film a lot too ,YOU however just caused the biggest resounding CLANG as the giant penny dropped and realization set it . I love the way you thought this through and made the whole thing even creepier than it was in the first place .Thanks for this I will be checking out more of your work to see if there is something I can argue a point or two over for the fun of it .Hope you carry on with your work as I am loving it so far .
Haha “ penny” .. that’s a forgotten monetary unit to this Gen..
So happy your Shutter Island video popped up on my feed. Absolutely got my sub, and so excited for your catalog of videos!
The mist, a movie I saw as a teenager and one I’ll stop to watch once in a blue moon, great breakdown! Never thought of the movie this way, and it makes me want to read into Stephen kings work even further like you talked about!
The story this is based on is a good one. But I think 'The Shining' is a good one to start with. First book I read of his and does a good job of laying out the "powers" a lot of people have in his books.
The Dark Tower series really just brings it all together and connects the complete universe.
@@PolterGibbst can you do a breakdown on dark city? It’s a movie I watched as a child and I remember that movie being very interesting, reminds me of a literal darker version of momento. Let me know if you’ve seen it and what you think
@@DunnHere haven't seen it. Added it to my list though, but sadly it isn't streaming anywhere currently. So I'll have to see if I can find it somewhere.
Thank you for not spoiling it. I have read 'The Shining' and only 100-200 pages into 'IT' I know about the cosmic battle of pure evil and those who shine but from what I know and see that just the tip of the iceberg. The Mist, 1408, Cujo were all moives I watxhed a lot as a kid. But now I really need to read The Mist and 1408
I wouldn't want to rob anyone of the journey and all the discoveries along the way. Even though someone thought it was funny to spoil the ending for me, but I finished the Dark Tower series and loved it.
I also started with The Shining, and still think it is the best book to get introduced to "the power system" in Kings books. Next book I read was The Gunslinger (first of the Dark Tower).
But the more you read the more it all makes sense. And amazingly it looks like everyone that has read a lot of King completely agreed with this whole thing. So I can definitely say it does go much much deeper.
Also The Mist is in the short story collection Skelton Crew. And 1408 is in Everything's Eventual. If you do go looking for them.
Nope. Don't care what anyone says. This movie has always been about not giving up hope no matter how bleak it is. It's pretty much the Sci-Fi version of Shawshank to me. The real monsters being right there with you the whole time.
I'm so glad people are still talking about this movie and its fanbase continues to grow. I saw this in the theater with my friend. At the end, the entire audience went dead silent, except for my friend who was cackling like a raving lunatic.
Your friend sounds awesome ❤
@@HeatherHolt
Awesome indeed. When we went to go see Congo, he shouted in an outraged voice at the opening, "Hey, there wasn't any music in the book!!!"
Their friend sounds like one of those people that tries to hide their discomfort through being loud and obnoxious. I know everyone copes differently, but when your cope annoys other people that’s not cool...
@@AbeusMaximus
He laughed because he thought it was funny in a darkly cynical way. Comedy is wholly subjective, and genuine laughter is perfectly acceptable at the theater.
There's always that one bro in the group thats a little looney
Holy freaking crap this is a brilliant theory and it has given me an entirely new outlook, and a whole new respect, for the movie "The Mist." Thank you for your insightful and fascinating take on this movie and on the themes and underlying symbolism going on in it
While I respect and appreciate your take on the film, mine differs significantly. That said, I think we can both agree that this is a beautifully crafted and well executed tale of horror!
One doesn’t “read” The Dark Tower series. One walks the path with Roland of Gilead. Again and again and again and again...
Is it worth it?
Oh…that hurt. Good one!!
@@Emperor_Palpatine_66totally worth it.
@@Emperor_Palpatine_66 it absolutely is.
walks path with roland. i dont get it
She was just crazy and they changed the ending from the book. In the book and in the movie Mrs. Carmody is just the collective madness that can creep up from Charismatic leaders. The irrational fear that crops up and people just look to someone with the answers.
Exactly this guy just making a bunch of Hindsight connections to fit his FanFic amusing but wrong. This is How most religions get created btw.
@@AlbertoMartinez765edgy bro
Dropped your fedora over there
@@texasforever6950he's right though
@@DidWeMakeIt oooooooohhh I’m 14 and don’t believe in gooooooddddd.
@@texasforever6950 If only more people were as rational and skeptical as the fourteen years old person in your example.
This relieves me from that ending so much. Thank you for rewatching it so many times for the rest of us.
Just found your channel today since I was recommended the 1408 analysis. Definitely becoming one of my favorite horror movie channels. Love the content, keep up the great work!
That's crazy to me. 😂
That's only because I've made the same comments before to other people that I watch. But I'm am very grateful, and luckily I have a whole list of videos to do. Probably going to record another one tonight so I can actually get ahead of schedule... or try to atleast. 😅
After your explanation, I've never thought about the connection and it blew my mind. If it counts what the lady said. "We want the kid" and right after he's killed the mist began to dissappear, because de couldn't have the kid's body to influence like the lady.
I still think it was coincidental, the military was rolling by in mass. They did something, locked the door from which the mist expelled from.
How is that possible? Not even the red queen could close the gaps, and she is more powerful than the crimson king or any of the anti-beams. Not even the artist could do that, and he was the strongest being in all of the king novels.
Wasn't "Storm on the Century" @ the bad guy, blown in with the storm, wanting a kid?
It's basically the same scenario as "God and the surgeon." A dying person is saved with surgery. Believers would thank God, humanists would thank the surgeon. The movie's narrative errs on the side of of the humanist, though the symbolism is more religious.
Damn dude, thats a really interesting perspective! Im convinced 😅 great vid.
The end of this movie is so amazing, it’s so dark and I’m glad to see movie makers taking chances with dark endings which people usually hate.
I like the idea that bc the kid was offed, the mist disappeared but since the mom and her kids were already being driven in the truck main buddy sees drive by, and the soldiers have clearly been out offing monsters for more than the few min it’s been since main buddy offed his kid… idk. It was already being fixed before he sees the soldiers drive by. Which was before he offed his kid.
But that’s an interesting idea! And I love out of the box thinkin. I enjoy seeing themes of how religious delusion can take over in times of fear and uncertainty.
Omfg I get so happy when I find channels like yours, where it's a person, and not a narrative ai, and the person is actually a fan! Also, did you know that in most cultures, poltergeists aren't really spirits, but more of bottled up, very negative/hateful emotions that manifest and usually target the victim of said feelings and anyone/thing that gets in their way? And it normally has to be reeeeeally strong to stay around after said person leaves/dies, either the victim, or the holder of the feelings. If it's toward the house itself, walls and trees have memories and mirrors and bodies of water are like supernatural cameras 🙃
Fantastic! You’ve fixed the ending for me after all these years!!!
you really just blew my mind with your last theory about Billy being able to do stuff to you know who so he had to do all this just to get rid of him, it makes so much sense, damn, you just made this movie even better than it already was thank you so much
Man I rewatched this movie on your recommendation to do so. I had seen it before, but it had been 17 years ago. After rewatching, and watching your deep dive, I really enjoy your take on the movie. Well done!
Thanks, always nice to recommend and movie and people actually go watch it.
Thanks for your contribution to my ever-growing interest of this movie. Definitely worth a like and a discussion. I just wish the writers of these kind of flicks would come out like maybe 3-5 years after the movie's release and just flat out tell us what exactly was going on instead of having to hypothesize about it hahahahha.
I have an alternate theory that I feel is played out.
She says that the boy must be sacrificed.
Moments after he kills the boy the mist disappears.
That might not be the intent, but it certainly is a hell of a coincidence.
That's exactly where I thought he was going with his theory as well. Less about the 4 bullets having to be used and more about the fact that theist wants this child to be sacrificed and once he is them all is well. Like if they would've just gave him up in the store as awful as it is, it would've all ended there. Since everything else she said came thue & that's what ended her talking at all that was the purpose. And I don't see a connection to Shawshank at all. Yeah they lost hope & hope is everything but is that enough to say they are connected? Maybe in a small way that connects all his books but not in a way pertinent to this story.
@@chrystalmcatee6224 I can see the idea that it was the BBEG in The Dark Tower trying to eliminate the boy, but I think that's even a stretch. But then again, there's a lot of references to The Dark Tower so maybe that part flies.
The problem is when you have stories written out before The Dark Tower, such as Shawshank, and then he retroactively has to make them fit into the overarching Dark Tower universe without retconning it all too badly.
This has always been my theory as well
I think that's pretty much what he said in the video. And also what thousands of other people have theorised.
It was the boy all along, the boy had to die...
That actually makes me feel a little better about the ending! Thank you!
I'm glad, that's literally what I was going for. Not a lot better of course but a little.
Liked & subscribed. Your theory about Mrs. Carmody makes a great deal of sense. I have a fan theory of my own that could be consistent with it, in which I argue that the reprensentation of her as a Christian fanatic is off the mark. Rather, I submit, at one time she may have been a Christian--not a fanatic, but a relatively normal one.
However, that all changed forever many years back, the day a scruffy old stranger wandered into her shop, the Brighton Antiquary, carrying a dusty satchel filled with various curios. Mrs. Carmody started sorting through the items and found a few of passing interest, including a translucent green alabaster box that had some carvings of what looked to be some obscure alphabet, a wood statue depicting a creature so bizarre & unnatural in appearance that she found it utterly revolting and concluded that the artist who fashioned it must be a patient in some lunatic asylum, and beneath the clutter lay a book bound in a pale leather: It looked to be seveal hundred years old, was partiy in Latin & partly Greek, illustrated with Medieval woodcuts that depicted wizards casting spells, and summoning weird winged creatures similar to the statue; on the book's cover the title _Necronomicon._
Frankly, Mrs. Carmody wasn't so sure any of her customers would have much of an interest in buying these curios, save, perhaps, for the alabaster box. She only relented to making the purchase when the old man's asking price was ridiculously low. After closing for the day, she took them back to her home to clean. Tired, she plunked down into a recliner, and picked up the book (an accursed grimoire, it turns out) to skim through it. This is something she'd do with some regularity, because while the other items found their way out onto the store shelves, for some reason unbeknownst to her, she felt compelled to keep it at her house for further perusal. This would prove her undoing, as Mrs. Carmody was unwittingly growing in closer and closer contact with Abholos, the Great Old One known as the Devourer in the Mist, and according to one account, a spawn of Cthulhu. The effect of the contact was that Abholos was able to telepathically implant a malignant mind parasite into her brain to do his bidding. He's her new "god", and it is he that demands human sacrifices, an order to which she is all too happy to help facilitate.
Although the opening of the interdimensional portal was largely due to the Army project, _how_ was it due? In the following, I blend fact and fiction: Could someone such as Temple of Set occultist and Colonel Michael Aquino--also involved in Army Intelligence--have sabotaged the project to bring about the Age of Set through a Dark Working? Might Mrs. Carmody been assisting this effort without any free will in the matter? That's my story and I'm sticking to it! 😏
I never watch scary movies, but 2 days after I watched this, the thickest mist I've ever seen surrounded my house. Nothing could be seen outside the windows. FREAKIEST DAY EVER. Even the town I live in now is known for having thick mist, but I've never experienced it that thick, since then. The timing was soooooooooooooooooooooo weird! But I left some windows open, to prove to myself that I was not scared of make-believe.
The moral of the story is to never give up hope, because no matter how bad things seem, help might be right around the corner, and better days might be ahead. In the book, there was also a letter found at the end of the story with one word written on it: "Hope."
I was just recommended this video and it was awesome! The Mist and The Stand are among my favorite King stories so I've had the same theories on this ending. I enjoy watching "First Time Watching" videos just to see reactions to the ending.
For those unfamiliar, the Arrowhead Project in The Mist, which is loosely connected to The Shop (King’s version of the CIA, also seen in Firestarter and other works) was working on interdimensional access experimentation. They accidentally tore open a door, or “Thinny” (a place where the membrane between worlds is thinnest), into what is called Todash Space (the infinite void in between worlds). It is from there that the mist and the creatures came (you might recognize the “Lobstrosities”, what killed Ollie, as the creatures that attacked Roland on the beach in The Drawing of the Three). From there, entities such as the Crimson King (whom Randall Flagg works for) can exert a level of influence upon certain “more unstable types” such as Miss Carmody, much like the deceptively, seductive whispers of the Old Gods of Lovecraft, which these characters would interpret as being from the god they believe in.
I have watched your videos on and off for a while, but the Dead Meat shoutout have made me a permanent resident, sir
I am SO, SO PROUD OF YOU!!! The first video I saw of you was the movie “1408” and my comment was, “Your commentary is really good, but my man, your camera.” This video was awesome. And you’re extremely knowledgeable about Stephen King. “Pan’s Labyrinth” isn’t one of his. It’s Guillermo del Toro. Which would be an awesome Segway to another review. That or “Whiplash.” Also, MY MAN! Your mic!!! ❤
😂 yeah, that old webcam was what you would get from Wal-Mart for $10. But when starting out you gotta do what you gotta do.
Actually just upgraded camera again after this Christmas, actually be able to shoot in 4k if I wanted to.
Originally I had a whole like minute talking about the paintings. 😅 they are all done by the Drew Struzan I showed briefly. I believe he did around 150 super famous movie posters and this was just a few of his.
Anyway, thank you. Getting it figured out, and more and more people seem to be jumping on board.
I am so glad i saw this movie in theatres. Hearing everyone simultaneously gasp at the end was such a unique experience
I felt your pain about accidentally getting something spoiled for you. So many times I've been watching a television show & decided to look up one small thing & accidentally had the ending spoiled for me.
This is one of my most favorite Stephen King movies and the ending is just...a masterpiece. And you do a great job of breaking it all down. Thank you.
20:21 There are various interpretations on the myth of Pandora’s Box. Some say the box held Hope as the one instrument man could use against all the evils that were unleashed into the world when the box was opened. However, other interpret Hope as an evil in that it gives you the perception that you can change things that are beyond your control thus leading to disaster.
Please, anyone who see's this, for the love of Gan and the memory of the Kingdom of Gilead just do as Polter suggests and READ THE DARK TOWER SERIES!!! Fantastic video man.
Let me start by saying, I never once thought that Mrs. Carmody was wrong because I was huge King fan and had seen the film Carrie--even read the book later. Like the Mist's Mrs. Carmody, Mrs. White was 100% correct ('They're all gonna laugh at you'; 'Witch, got Satan's power'); Mrs. Carmody said that the Mist would clear away if the little boy (Billy) was sacrificed, and he was and it did. I thought--until today--I was the only one who saw this. I am surprised, however, that you did not mention the Carrie connection. One last thing, you did not mention which book in the saga you were currently on, but let me just advise you...put it away, and don't press on. Don't press on, if you want to look back in fondness on what you have already read.
😨 don't know why but I got chills as I read the last part... because I did just read the last part. Probably finished about the time you made this comment...
But it was always about the journey, even when everyone tells us to turn back.
My 10 year journey of reading may be done, but at the same time it's like it's only just begun.
Mainly since I've not been asked by a quite a few people to attempt to connect all of the King movies and shows... maybe this will be my own tower.
@PolterGibbst great video man! I remember the first time I read the ending to the dark tower series. It left me absolutely speechless and screwed up. It also made me immediately want to pick up the gunslinger again and go on that journey again. Been through it 3 times since and everytime I get more from it
@@travdoggiedogg5525 I'm honestly relieved on how it ended. Had someone spoil the ending here in the comments the day before I finished reading it.
But even after blocking the troll, I was glad to have King remind me that it was about the journey. Otherwise I think I would have died from the spoiler. 😂
No. Unless sacrificing a child makes the military appear, this is bullshit.
you really think that when the boy died the military just magically appeared behind them? or does it make sense that military was already clearing a path to them before he even his life was taken?
This is top tier Movie reviews. Best voice good commentary and I am always excited when I notice a video drop.
Let's go. 2024 going to be a good year
@@PolterGibbst I say 100k by the middle of the month
That'd be nice for sure. Guess we will see.
Well, over half to your prediction. Gonna need more of these predictions with each new video. 😂
@@PolterGibbst keep it up my dude. Hopefully I’ll get lost in the comments some day! Keep on uploading!!!!!!!
This was epic! I'm a new subscriber! Even if it's 10 months later, you are a bloody legend!
Another amazing break down, really enjoying these videos keep them coming my mate. Hello from the uk and hope everybody had a great Christmas
Awesome. This one took me a while, thought it was going to be a Christmas day video but I'm just glad to have it done and start on the next one
Thank you I loved this movie and had no Idea how in-depth the lore went! Great job explaining it, never even realized "my life for him" was quoted in that movie either.
Thank you. It's funny because at first I couldn't find it. Even knowing she said it I had to rewatch it just to figure out where. Otherwise I feel like the theory wouldn't hold up as well, but clearly there it was. Sort of brought it all together nicely.
You brilliant bastard. You absolute genius. I can't believe I never even had the notion the ending wasn't bad timing, but a required sacrifice. I don't believe you're wrong about this, and I'm so impressed with your reasoning.
I view the ending more like the ending to War of the Worlds. The Military opened a portal and from that portal spawned the mist, and the rift allowed monsters to pass through regardless of size as it made a bleed effect. But when the military closed it they cut off the continued progression but what was here was here already. The ending of the movie shows that the mist was not remaining, it was thinning out, breaking down in our air and dissolving. So the creatures were dying as their air vanished.
The old crazy lady was mentally ill, spouting out random things that seem prophetic but were common sense to anyone who took a minute to think about it. They gave her words power by putting belief into it and in Kings work belief is a powerful tool.
The people in the car believed it was hopeless, so it was. But after it all when he had given up hope and was letting whatever happened next happen, it let the mist fade completely because his hopelessness was not fueling it anymore.
The animals came through. Just imagine what the plants may be like in such an ecology.
@@randallbesch2424Feed Me Seymour
The Arrowhead Project is a military experiment performed in Shaymore, apparently intended to create a trans-dimensional window with which to peer through into other dimensions.
And travel to and from since distances are out of the question in space travel.
Exactly not this bs from a schizophrenic cult leader off her meds that preaches ambiguous statements.
so basically they did a event horizon but instead of going into the warp they decided to just let the warp in the world.
Another important aspect of The Mist is that nobody in the store is keen on fighting back against the monsters, even though they're all clearly shown to be weak to ordinary weapons, and the military seemingly has little issue clearing them out.
All they ever had to do was fight back.
Instead, they gave into fear and paranoia and assumed the monsters were an unstoppable force simply because they were alien and huge.
And because they THOUGHT they were unbeatable... they were.
As someone who has read many Stephen King novels including The Dark Tower and The Stand youre explanation makes so much sense. Specifically when taken in context to The Dark Tower. Which really does link everything in the Stephan King universe.
I'm just glad everyone that has actually read his stuff see where I'm coming from and pretty much agrees.
Those who haven't read any of it though want to argue about it. 😅
Hard to explain any of it in detail without them having any prior knowledge or without just telling them multiple King stories, spoilers and all.
This is actually a really cool theory and it has some solid stuff backing it. Would be interested seeing how the director/writer feel about it. Great video! This was the first one of yours I've come across so definitely getting a sub from me.
I remember seeing this in theaters. And boy, were people pissed about the ending.
Understanding this, thanks to your coverage. It makes so much more sense.
Another fun fact about the ending is if you notice the groups of soldiers you can see the mother who left in the very beginning of the movie and to the fog by herself is actually reading and the back of the trucks with a soldiers. Meaning of these single mother by herself with no protection and no weapon was spared by the monsters. So yeah people assuming but be fog and the monsters leaving as soon as the four at the end they're shot is just the military. Completely missed the point.
Yes... guess you didn't read all the text at the end of the video. I showed her. And explained why, how, and even mention the Crimson King himself.
No shame or anything, it's literally after the outro and is like the last 5 seconds of the video, had to throw it in for a fun fact.
Extra Fun Fact:
Darabont wanted to also have the people from the store be in the back of the trucks too, but because it was after all of them were done filming it was going to be too big of a headache to get everyone out for a small thing like that. So they dropped it. That would have been... even more sad if you ask me.
I don't understand what you wrote at all.
You're forgetting the defenseless old woman who was killed by the spider things when she left the store with the others to get in the truck. Why wasn't she spared , according to your theory? And why would the monsters decide not to kill a lone woman , having no idea whether she had children or not , but decide it was okay to kill a man who clearly had a child? This idea seems pretty weak upon examination.
@@subliteralbecause in the realm of life certain things don’t make sense. People also explained it might be because she lived with faith/hope of finding her child
Its shown in the ritual of chuud, those who never lose hope are watched over by maturin, and as his wooden obelisk isnt broken yet he still can affect the prime world. He isnt a being of the beam, he is the existence of the beam. The other, the primm, the tower, even the dandaloos have to obey the laws of maturin.
Raises a question, if some guy was instantly attacked the moment the fog rolled in, how the heck did Melissa walk through it!?
My guess is The Turtle of Enormous Girth, Maturin.
She was sanctified and performing a noble deed . She wouldn't make a good blood sacrifice . Killing her wouldn't add to the chaos . Odds are that the " monsters " didn't even know she had left the store . This all occurred before the crazy lady started channeling the " old God's " . Therefore , her screaming " your gonna die out there " was conjecture , not a prophecy . JMO
Going off the book, the creatures have to hunt by smell since the mist obstructs visually and soundwise. So taking that into account, with all the people bleeding and dying or sweating their pheromones, all she had to do was stay calm and quiet.
Infantry wave at the edges
amazing summary. I love how to fully understand a steven king book you need to know his previous works. it adds an additional layer for long time fans
Remember the Mist! is able to nagivate move from one place to the other. Like in the begining we can see it was moving and coming from the mountains until it got to town. So i always thought when he killed them and got out of the car, around that same time the mist was moving completely away like sort of in the same direction the HUGE creature was walking towards. U know. To me it looked like that huge creature was following the direction of the mist. Me personally i dont think it was the military that clear the mist out & made it go away. I think, the mist moved out of that town OR it disapeared forever?. And the army clearly were cleaning the mess that was left behind?.
Im still intrigued about something. Ok so when the military were experimenting. How huge was the portal and did the mist started coming out of it like a fog machine and the creature as well?. How did that huge one got through?. Is the portal still open?. Can the creatures survive without the mist?. And if the mist is still alive moving from that town to another place, where would end up next? and how can they stop it?. If the mist moves on a ocean can the creatures swim, float or walk on water or levitate with the mist?. Can u jump into the portal and go to their world?. etc... Gosh so many questions and intrigued thoughts.
I always thought of it like one of those science experiments with the volcano. Because I believe the base where the experiment was being done was up in the mountains and it basically came flowing out and covered the town and then continued on to who know how far.
I can't answer all the questions since I haven't read all the books and even that may not have all the answers. But I do know the big bad would throw his enemies into the todash space to be eaten by monsters. So you can go through the portal into their world.
And the only other spot I know of that this happened was basically a huge crater/canyon in the earth. Definitely big enough for the big creatures to walk through no problem.
I doubt the creatures can float in the mist. Some can fly, but most just seem like twisted and giant versions of animals and insects that would be in our world. And I'm not sure if the can survive outside the mist, maybe for a little while. That may explain why the piece of the tentacle David cut off turned into a weird liquid when the group went to look at it. So it could be like their own little atmosphere, and die without it.
It makes me wonder how much can be know from the rest of the books. Maybe one of these days I'll have read enough for it all to make perfect sense.
Ok I really love how deep your thoughts are going here 😂 especially about how you mention if it goes over water do the critters fall in lol I love it when people go down mental rabbit holes like me
@@HeatherHolt me too. The rabbit holes are the best places to be. 😂
I'm currently working on another video about Shutter Island and this rabbit hole is super deep. May end up being my longest video, but we will see.
i don't recall exactly how king described the 'thinny' in wizard & glass, but i think it was less an open portal with defined edges, and more a place where there was still a thin membrane of mid-world's reality (hence, thinny) separating it from the other dimensions. basically, it will accommodate the size of anything capable of surviving the hop from one reality to another.
She was right about the human sacrifices too. Particularly the kid - the Mist ‘ cleared ‘ once the people she wanted to sacrifice actually died .
I'm 40 seconds in and most new youtubers I run across are miserable to listen too you seem normal thanks for that.
😂 well the question is did it become miserable?
@@PolterGibbst nope watched the whole vid
You established great rapport with this video intro, better be worth it!!!😂
Updated: Now that you mentioned it, the lines do connect on your hypothesis.
I still like the if they only waited interpretation.
Well it is just a theory. (That does seem to work pretty well.)
All I know for sure is never lose hope.
Well, that was a happy accident coming across this page.
Absolutely brilliant explanation of the story, the addition of other King tropes was spot on.
Always wondered what happened to Randall Flagg.
Thank you for rebooting my interest.