The Mist (2007) KILL COUNT

Welcome to Kill Count, where we

count

the victims of all our favorite horror movies. I'm James A. Janisse and today we're watching 'The Mist', a

2007

Frank Darabont film based on a novel by Stephen King... ...which I managed to read in preparation for this video. 'The Mist' is Frank Darabont's third Stephen King adaptation, after writing and directing both 'Shawshank Redemption' in '94 and 'The Green Mile' in '99. And after 'The Mist', Darabont would create 'The Walking Dead', which is why here you'll find no less than four actors who eventually ended up on that show. 'The Mist' tells the story of survivors trapped in a supermarket after a thick fog comes to town and covers everything around them... ...reducing visibility to nothing and hiding things that collide in the fog. .

While it may seem like a simple monster movie, 'The Mist' spends more time examining how humans react in moments of crisis... ...with plenty of philosophical and religious discussion as the situation becomes increasingly more terrible. . One last note, I initially saw this film in the black and white version, because that's how Darabont wanted it to be made and displayed... ...but I'll use the color print for this video because that's the way was released. And because, if Kill Count's opinions of 'Night of the Living Dead' are any indication, you all don't give a damn about black and white movies.

Alright, let's

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! The film begins with a storm in the small town of Bridgeton, Maine. Local artist David Drayton takes his eight-year-old son Billy and his wife Stephanie downstairs to weather the situation. Aptly named Dave, because this one is fantastic, as evidenced by the giant tree that appeared through the living room window that night. While inspecting the damage the next morning, they discover that another tree has fallen and crushed their boathouse. As they look across the lake, they notice some smoke on the water, but luckily there is no fire in the sky. David approaches his neighbor Norton, a lawyer played by Andre Braugher, to exchange insurance information, since it was his tree that broke his boathouse.

Norton also had a bad morning, as the storm also took away his prized car. David offers his condolences, even though they have a strained relationship, as Norton sued David in the past over property lines. Man! Houseboats, prized cars, property line disputes? What kind of fog does a man have to go through to have those problems? Norton hitches arrived with David and Billy to head into town for supplies. On the way, they see a group of trucks heading to a nearby military base. "The Arrowhead Project? Any idea what they're doing there?" "Missile defense research? You know, I'm sure you've heard the stories." Between that and all the radio stations and phones down, it's clear something went wrong.

Inside the store, we meet some of the cast. The most important are Ollie, a modest-looking boy who I promise you will love by the end of this movie... ...and Mrs. Carmody, played by Marcia Gay Harden, who I promise you will hate with every fiber of your heart. your self. Others include Irene, an elderly teacher, and her friend Hattie... ...a trio of Arrowhead military men including soldier 'Star

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er' Jessup, who has eyes for store employee Sally... ... and Amanda Dumfries, Irene's fellow teacher who is new in town. A military police officer shows up at the store to tell the soldiers that his leave has been canceled, and after a group of emergency vehicles pass by, a siren sounds.

Running into the store is Dan, Bridgeton's own Paul Revere. "SOMETHING IN THE FOG! SOMETHING IN THE FOG!" He tells them to close the doors and stay inside, but one guy decides to run to his car. As the fog advances over the shopping complex, it envelops everything in its path. Although we see a lot of people down there, I'll only

count

the guy who ran out of the Kill Count, because he had one line of dialogue and we heard him scream off screen. Congratulations, random guy! You are our first death in the video. A giant earthquake shakes the store, knocking everyone over and destroying quite a few lamps in the process.... ...and people immediately start theorizing about what's going on.

Old Grizzly Bear Ambrose claims it's some kind of chemical plant explosion, while Mrs. Carmody goes for a much simpler, tried-and-true classic. "It's the end of days!" A woman, played by Melissa McBride, says that she has to return to the children she left at home. She implores everyone to accompany her... "Won't anyone here accompany a lady home...?" ...but everyone looks away from her, so she leaves the tent without them and goes alone into the fog to find Terminus...that is, save her children. Some time later, David heads to the back room to get a blanket for Billie and finds the generator SSSMOKIN'!

He says, 'SOMEONE should STOP this!' He then turns it off... ...but on the way back he hears a very loud creaking sound and sees the loading dock door slam. He asks Ollie and these two mechanics, Myron and Jim, if they heard him, but they just think he's hearing things in the dark. They are joined by Norm, another store employee, who I didn't mention before because he assumed everyone knows his name. They all head to the back room, where Myron says something is blocking the generator's exhaust port outside, so Norm volunteers to go out and unblock it.

David tries to stop him, but Jim calls him a big old sissy. They open the door a crack, and as they laugh at David's caution, a tentacle slithers out and grabs Norm's leg, making him fall to the ground. David tries to save him as the mechanics freeze in fear and the tentacles tear the skin off Norm's leg and neck. However, Ollie is a G and grabs a fire axe, but before he can bring it down on the tentacle, Norm it moves away. The tentacles keep appearing like pop-ups on a hentai site, and Norm is dragged to his death off-screen for our second death of the movie.

As David and Ollie close the door again, the tentacle begins to retreat, but David rips off a chunk of that squid-like arm, capping off a wonderful action-horror sequence. After David rightfully punches Jim in the face for getting Norm killed, they leave the back room and David changes his shirt while he talks to Amanda. Girl, she don't care! The guys were shocked, mm mm mm, when they realized that the entire front of the store is glass. So they start doing what any good American does in times of stress: drinking beer. They try to recruit Norton to help them warn everyone, since he's an important and respectable lawyer... ...but he doesn't believe them one bit, thinking that they're playing tricks on him since he's an out- stranger, and as revenge for the time he sued David.

His petty dispute draws the attention of everyone else in the store, including owner Bud, who threatens to write everyone's name down for drinking the store's beer. "Write your names." "I will do that." "And in the meantime, shut up and listen." David tells everyone how something out of the fog took Norm. There's obviously skepticism, but David takes Bud and the biker to the back and shows them the tentacle... ...which reacts violently after a moment. hit and then turns black and starts smoking, before dissolving into nothing. That's proof enough for Bud. "It looks like we may have a problem of some magnitude here." As people pile bags of fertilizer and dog food against their windows as defense... ...Mrs.

Carmody prays and asks God if she can help her save some people in the store. She's a great monologue from Marcia Gay Harden, whose performance in this movie earned her a Saturn Award, so she's great. Amanda interrupts her prayers at the porcelain altar, needing to go to the bathroom, but also offering her friendship. "The day I need a friend like you, I'll stoop a little and shit myself." So... that's a no? Different fields of ideology begin to form in the store. Norton leads the skeptics, saying there is no proof for David's story, while Carmody says this is all straight out of 'Revelations.' "'And the temple was filled with smoke from the glory of God...'" She delivers a veritable fire and brimstone sermon on sinners in the midst of an angry God and begins to touch a child's face.

Hey, mom! Why don't you stop that crazy woman from touching your son's face? When Carmody asks for atonement in the form of blood sacrifice, Amanda has had enough. "Another down payment. A few more pennies in the jar." Carmody concludes with the promise that more people will be taken during the night. Billy supervises the military men having a quiet argument, before David tries to comfort him by telling him that Stephanie will be fine at home. Thinking about contingencies, Dan asks if anyone has a gun, but the only one she has with her is Amanda and she is not an experienced marksman.

Does anyone in this place know how to shoot well? "Yeah." Of course you do, Ollie, because you're a tough, unassuming guy! "I was in target shooting. State champion in '94." Norton has had enough and prepares to leave with his group of skeptics, and the biker says he's going with them just to grab a shotgun from Ambrose's truck outside. He also agrees to tie a rope around his waist so everyone knows how far they've come, in case something happens to them. Carmody mocks them as they leave, but they go ahead anyway... ...and this is the last time we see Norton and his team, so I'm going to add him and his six nameless redshirts to the Count right now. ... ...which means Jake Peralta can expect a promotion.

Nine nine! I think it's safe to say they're dead, since something obviously goes wrong when the rope first goes slack... ...and then is pulled so fast it burns David's hand. The rope is pulled skyward and then slackened again, and when David reels it in, it looks like he caught a big one! Or... half big anyway, as he drags the biker's lower body into the tent, confirming his death and pushing our Count into double digits. Night comes and we get a non-book related scene between Jessup and Sally in the back of the store, so we care more when one of them inevitably dies.

Yeah! Build those pathos points! In the front we get our first glimpse of a fog creature as a bunch of big, nasty bugs start crawling through the windows outside. His presence only serves as more evidence in Mrs. Carmody's mind. "'Locusts on Earth'..." The bugs may look really gross, but they don't seem like much of a threat, unlike these pterodactyl-looking sons of bitches... ....who start crashing into the window when they are having their midnight snacks. Nothing makes you fly more than the promise of a fourth meal! One of them finally breaks into the store, letting in a bunch of bugs as well.

Amanda is able to fend her off with a nice, squishy bug stomp... ...but Sally gets itchy in the neck and starts convulsing on the floor. As Ollie chases the pterry into the store with his gun, another one flies in and lands on this Tom guy... ...pinning him to the ground and ripping out his throat, which kills old Tom pretty quickly. What a pity for Tom that there was no one there to catch the pterries when they turned frogs! Just after Tom's death, Sally also dies, dying from the insect's venom and increasing our death count to a dozen.

David sets the Hungry Hungry 'Dactyl on fire, so now there's a flaming beast from hell flying around that David has to chase with his mop and beat it to death. I don't know what part of that whole situation seemed funny, but this guy, Joe, wants to participate by lighting his mop like David did, but then spilling the bucket of fuel and catching himself on fire. That's, uh... that's not how David did it, Joe! Be less clumsy. Mrs. Carmody is also visited by one of the insects... ...but she stays perfectly still while she prays, so the insect flies away, further cementing her sense of moral superiority.

It's not until Ollie finally manages to hunt down the first pterry and shoot it dead that the people in the store get a chance to breathe. As the rational people get the store back up and running, one of the not-so-rational customers tells David that Mrs. Carmody was right about people being killed at night. This lady is turning to something extreme out of hopelessness... ...which Hattie also does, but in a different way, when Amanda finds her dead by suicide that same night, with an empty bottle of pills next to her. David and some of the others begin to make a plan.

They head to the pharmacy next door to get painkillers for Joe, who is so burned from the dactyl attack that he is sincerely asking for the gun so he can kill himself and end the pain. And then they'll get the hell out of there. David has a Land Cruiser withcapacity for eight people parked closer to the store than the Norton people... ...and the plan is to get there and head south before Carmody and his growing congregation become a problem. "We can start to worry about who he will sacrifice to make everything better." After a scene filled with admittedly clunky dialogue, with everyone openly expressing a bunch of philosophical views about the nature of humanity and such... ...David's fears are validated when Carmody riles everyone up against the plan. of him to leave, saying it.

It will attract more wrath from God or whatever. Irene silences her with a can of peas. "Shut up, you miserable vulture!" She then joins David's foraging party, which includes Jim the mechanical jerk, Bob, Joe's brother, the burn victim, Jessup, the Arrowhead soldier, Dan, Ollie, and this guy Mike. They walk through thick fog to the pharmacy for another great extended sequence. Irene helps David and Ollie find the painkillers they need while the others discover they are not alone. In fact, they find four other people in the store hanging around. I've shown three here, I'll show the fourth in a minute when the movie arrives.

A fifth body grabs Jim from behind and turns out to be the police officer from before. He calls for help as he writhes in pain and guilt. "It's our fault! It's all our fault!" Then, bubbling vomit emerges from his skin. Spiders, that is. Black death. Bridgeton Bugs. He falls to the ground and dies when his back bursts open to a large amount of these nasty babies. The mother spiders begin to appear, even in a shot with that anonymous fourth body, and the webs they shoot at the group appear to be acidic. One of the nets wraps around Bobby's leg and messes him up badly, and as the gang starts to retreat, another one hits Mike in the face.

He falls to the ground and is quickly attacked and eaten by baby and mommy spiders alike. It's a good old-fashioned family dinner! Thanks to the power of Ollie's firearm, Irene's homemade flamethrower, and Dan's skill with armor-piercing weapons, they are able to escape the massacre... ...but not before Bobby succumbs to his leg wound and is killed. bleed to death, left behind by Jessup. and David on the floor of the pharmacy to eat spider food. They return and the story of their adventure causes panic in the rest of the store. Some time later, David wakes up after passing out and receives the news that Joe passed away during the night from an infection from his burns.

So we'll add it to the death count and take a minute to reflect on how wasted that trip to the pharmacy was. It seems like all they really did was inspire another impassioned sermon from Carmody, who has now converted a lot of people to his cause, including Jim the mechanical jerk. "Atonement!" That's reason enough for David and his team to decide that now is the time to make some moves and get gtfo. Before leaving, David wants to get information from the soldiers, since that military police officer was saying that this was all his fault. Jessup claims ignorance, so they go looking for the other two and find them in the back room where they hanged themselves.

Apparently Project Arrowhead was responsible for all of this. Something about portals to other dimensions and the storm ruining their power? It's never fully articulated, but that's what we're working with here. As Jessup pleads his innocence to David, he is grabbed by Jim, who pulls him out and throws him to the ground in front of the rest of the survivors, blaming him for provoking God's wrath. Carmody takes this thread and runs with it, spinning a whole story about how angry God is with us for messing with Mother Nature. In the ensuing frenzy, Jessup is beaten and finally stabbed by the butcher, Mr.

Mackey. 'I just wanted a little atonement, okay?' Mackey and the other rabid devotees surf Jessup straight out the front door and throw him into the wilderness... ...where he comes face to face with an acklay-like beast who grabs him and drags him back into the woods. . fog to eat. At least they'll always know how big Jessup's hand was. The next morning at dawn, David's group gathers and tries to leave, but Carmody stops them. Oh yeah, we need a cleanup in Aisle One. There's a crazy religious fanatic with a knife. "I am his vessel." In fact, there is a group of knife-wielding madmen who surround the group and begin to move as Carmody orders them to grab Billy and Amanda for human sacrifice.

Her screams are interrupted with a shot to the abdomen by Ollie, who follows up with a HEAD SHOT to knock her down... ...ending an incredible performance by Marcia Gay Harden as one of the easiest people to hate Characters I've seen in a long time. Ollie's precision is enough to stop the rest of the crazy people, and David's group finally makes their great escape. They circle around the parking lot a bit and Myron, the other mechanic, dies when a spider knocks him to the ground and eats him. Myron's death brings us to 26 victims, officially surpassing 'Jason X' as the most victims in a death count so far.

Ollie fares a little better than Myron, he gets to the Land Cruiser first and opens all the doors for everyone else... ...but then the acklay comes back and grabs him with his big old lobster claws. The giant spider crab rips Ollie apart, a sad but thankfully quick end for a guy no one would have expected to have so much toughness inside. The acklay leaves, allowing David and his team to get into his car. He honks for the others, but to no avail, as Bud returns to the entrance of the store and Ambrose is cornered and eaten by a group of those big spiders.

All of these monsters are pretty horrible, but I don't know if they're worse than the giant spiders that spit out acid webs. Before leaving, David grabs the gun that Ollie dropped, narrowly avoiding another giant spider that breaks his windshield and crawls on the roof of his car. They are finally ready to leave the store behind and begin a somber ending to the film, set to music by a singing choir. They walk past the store to take one last slow-motion look at all the desperate people left inside. Sorry Bud, so close! The first stop on the gang's fun road trip is David's house.

But that place gets zero stars out of five, because it's completely overrun with cobwebs and also because Stephanie, David's wife, is dead. And that's not how you get a good rating on Yelp, fog monsters! You can't go around putting people in spider cocoons like that. The group drives south, determined to see how far their gas tank will take them and see if they can get out of the fog. Although they pass a lot of destruction along the way, we only see one body: a girl on a school bus, so we'll add her to the Count as well.

Moving on, they also encounter a huge beast with a bunch of legs and tentacles hanging from its torso, a super cool image that uniquely conveys how FUBAR this situation has become. And then they run out of gas. Now, I'll tell you straight: in the book, this is where it ends. In fact, they don't even explicitly run out of gas. They just stop at a Howard Johnson's and take shelter there for the night, and it's all over. But the film has one more part of this story to tell. As they sit in silence, they hear distant noises of unseen horrors.

An unspoken agreement is reached between them and David checks his ammunition and finds that there are only four bullets left. "But there are five of us." "I'll figure out something". And you're looking like, 'Okay, but you know, what's really going to happen,' right? Especially when Billy wakes up and looks at his dad with wide eyes, but then... REALLY? Yes really! He did it! The movie went there! David mercifully killed Dan, Irene, Amanda, and their eight-year-old son Billy in an effort to spare them the horrors of the fog! It is a complete and absolutely devastating shock!

David tries in vain to shoot himself, but there are no more bullets, so he gets out of his vehicle and begins screaming, ready for his inevitable death. Some noises emerge from the fog, and then... a TANK and soldiers! In fact, tons of them, and a Humvee carrying a group of rescued people, including Melissa McBride and her children. As David looks around in shock, he sees the military laying waste to the creatures around them and the fog finally recedes. David stutters unintelligibly, his brain wracked by the horrible irony that he and the others were just MOMENTS away from rescue before he had to do the unimaginable.

So yes! One of the most profoundly sad endings in all of cinema history and a change from King's original material that the author totally tolerated. There are also some more explicit murders than in the novel. How many? Let's find out and get to the numbers! Something in the fog! SOMETHING IN THE FOG!! 34 people die in 'The Mist', by far the highest count we've had so far in a Kill Count. Of the victims, 21 were men, nine were women, and four were small, cocoon-like corpses that couldn't really be distinguished. Either way, lots of dude deaths, as always. With a duration of 126 minutes, that equates to one death on average every 3.71 minutes.

Which is like... wow! You're crazy, 'Mist'! Golden Chainsaw for Coolest Kill is for military police officer. It has some cool effects when he shows off his bubbly chest, and it's incredibly disgusting the way his back opens up to hatch a thousand tiny spiders. Dull Machete for Lamest Kill goes to Norton and the six red shirts he takes into the fog, as it is the most off-screen death of all the off-screen deaths. And that is! 'The Mist' has earned a reputation for having one of the saddest movie endings ever, and I was lucky that it wasn't spoiled before I saw it, so damn, that hit me hard!

Next week we'll get into the Halloween spirit with 'Trick 'r Treat' and listen... I'm sorry I can't cover Michael Myers right now. But when I do, I want to be able to cover all ten 'Halloween' movies and I definitely don't have time to do that right now. Until next week, I'm James A. Janisse. This has been the death count. Hey guys, thank you so much for watching my Kill Count for 'The Mist'! I want to thank some of my sponsors like Dylan Teverez, Ellen Ripley, and Jeremiah Walton. I know I don't have a beard anymore, I had to shave it off for my Pennywise costume!

Go to my Instagram to see photos, it looks great! Don't leave comments talking about my face, because if you do I'll know you didn't make it to the end of this video. Don't shorten my viewing time, you son of a bitch! Atonement!