Hooptober 2016

Frank Darabont comes through with another quality Stephen King adaptation. This is sort of a sci-fi and horror version of "Lord of the Flies" with elements of "Night of the Living Dead" and a few different Twilight Zone episodes.

For some strange reason, I always thought this was a shitty remake of "The Fog" under a different title. Boy, was I wrong.

In a film filled with ugly CGI Lovecraftian monsters, Marcia Gay Harden is the scariest damn thing in the picture.

And that ending! I had always heard it was controversial but holy crap. Damn.

Where the movie shines though is in the inter-conflict between the great cast and the rapid dissolution of society under adverse conditions. Even getting into Hobbesian and Lockean issues about the inherent goodness (or evil) of man.

I'd say the film comes down squarely on the side of Mr. Hobbes, and it really hammers home the way people find any excuse to be horrible to each other.

People in the grocery store tend to get a little grouchy even on a busy weekday night after work- so this scenario isn't that farfetched.

There are some plot holes (lights suddenly and violently attract the monsters except when we need flashlights or headlights). And the mid-2000's special effects are a bit dodgy.

But what I really want to know is what happened to Andre Braugher's group? Were they the ones in the pharmacy next door? I didn't catch it.