One thing I’ll grant The Mist is that its monsters are threatening the way Hostel‘s torturers or 28 Days Later‘s infected or The Texas Chain Saw Massacre‘s Leatherface is threatening. There’s no hardy-har-har-it’s-a-monster stuff or pauses to stand slackjawed and gawk at them “wow!”-style, reinforcing that it’s just a movie, like, at all. The film convincingly articulates the idea that if you see these things coming after you, you will either have to kill them or be killed yourself. I feel like it’s been a long time since a movie did that with non-humanoid monsters–the bug sequence in King Kong stands out in that regard too, but before that you’d have go back to, what? They still weren’t scary, but you did at least feel that kill-or-be-killed panic.
Now you’ve got me thinking.
Screamers had good non-humanoid monsters. It’s an underrated movie.
Oh! Pitch Black, of course.
I haven’t seen either of those, but the name “Pitch Black” made me realize that another big difference between the monsters in The Mist and a lot of monster movies, like Aliens or The Descent, is that these aren’t monsters that lurk and run around in the shadows, popping out once in a while but generally being murky. They pop against the white background of the mist. It’s in your face.
You haven’t seen Pitch Black? You missed a good one – it’s a genuinely intelligent sf monster movie, with a mixed lot of folks stuck on a world with three suns, just entering the once-in-a-generation eclipse phase when complications ensue. It’s got remarkably little of anyone being stupid because the plot requires it, a bunch of very good characterization, and really nice film making that makes smart use of its resources. (The same director, David Twohy, also made one of the best World War II and best ghost stories in a long time, in Below.) There are moments of Mary Sue-ism with Vin Diesel’s character, but also some interesting touches of complexity.
Also one of my favorite mini-rants:
Imam: Because you do not believe in God does not mean God does not believe in – .
Riddick: Think someone could spend half their life in a slam with a horse bit in their mouth and not believe? Think he could start out in some liquor store trash bin with an umbilical cord wrapped around his neck and not believe? Got it all wrong, holy man. I absolutely believe in God… And I absolutely hate the fucker.
Last Night (on Earth)’s Party
It’s difficult to separate an evaluation of Cloverfield the movie from Cloverfield the viral marketing phenomenon, Cloverfield the latest capitalization on Lost’s ur-absentee father J.J. Abrams’s largely unearned reputation as a genre hitmaker (from wh…