The Mist January 25, 2008

Recently, I watched a movie entitled “The Mist”. It’s actually a book by Stephen King which was adapted for the screen. Initially, I did not really want to watch the movie since I was not a big fan of Stephen King’s books. The funny thing is I first read his book when I was in my primary school. Some of his phrases, and scenes were actually a little bit too intimate for me. Hence, the eventual disgust at his books.

However, the movie really surprised me a lot. It had all the right elements that a movie should have. Suspense, comedy, and a little pinch of romance were all main elements of the movie. I was just tightly gripping the edge of my seat during almost every minute.

Let me just give you guys a brief overview. It’s actually about this small town which gets engulfed in this mist that appears after a heavy thunderstorm. In the mist, are things that really can make your hair stand on its ends. Basically, its about this man who gets trapped with his son at the supermarket where everyone runs for shelter. The story evolves around the man, and the son, and whether they actually make it out of the supermarket alive. They have a major twist . I really want to say it, but I shall not spoil the surprise for those who are planning to watch it!

 As I was saying, the movie was really good. They knew the audience’s interests, and toyed with their feelings. For example, while trapped in the supermarket, there was this Jewish women*no offence* who tried to turn the remaining survivors against one another, and all of the audience were so irritated with the woman that when she finally got shot, nearly all clapped and cheered! Do you see what the director did? He actually managed to move us through pathos, and I think that is the true success of the director!

Furthermore, the non-verbal cues, especially paralinguistics definitely played a big role. I mean in any movie, the sound effects add a special touch to the atmosphere. The sound effects actually made me tear at the end. The movie ended off sad, if you guys know what I mean.  The actors were double as good. Their emotions were well acted through verbal, and non-verbal gestures. For example. there was once when the 9 year old boy was so scared that he went back to his childhood state, and started sucking his thumb. This showed us the intensity of the fear of the people in the supermarket.

Like what I was saying above, the director knew how to make use of pathos,logos and ethos. Ethos refers to the character’s personal appeal and he or she manages to convince the reader or the audience through that. The movie was unique in the sense that there were a variety of characters, each with their own individual character. There was the heroic figure who turned out to be not so heroic when he refused to accompany a woman outside of the supermarket at the beginning of the movie. The uniqueness lies in the director’s ability to portray the heroic figure as an ordinary man just like anyone else who was involved with his own emotions and interests. However, ethos also can dissuade an audience from liking that particular character. In this case of the Jewish woman, I doubt that anyone from the audience actually emphatised with her for any reason. She was full of herself and was intent on turning the remaining survivors against one another. Therefore, the director was smart enough to apply two different contexts for the usag of ethos.

Pathos lies in the emotional context of the speech or in this case movie. Pathos is most regarded by Aristotle and other famous philosphers to be the most influential and therefore the most “dangerous”. Dangerous here means in the sense that one should be aware of the various pathos strategies used in speeches and then should critically evaluate the content of the speech. However, The Mist had a lot of speeches appealing to the pathos of the audience. For example, the director tried to move the audience by using the sound effects to create a gloomy atmosphere providing a sense of foreboding. In this case, I feel that the audience were well-knowledged about the usage of pathos and were able to critically evaluate the speeches that were spoken there. This provided a platform to gauge the evaluation of the movie as a whole. 

Lastly, logos refers to the logical content of the movie itself. I feel this is the director’s weakest point. He claims that in the mist there are creatures from other planets whom have slipped through this “window” during a military operation. It seems to me be almost like an utopian dream. It does not really try to  appeal to the logic of the audience since the subject matter is not very viable. The director assumes that everyone in the audience will just be forced to dream along with him a period where aliens from other planets try to conquer Earth. We can forgive the director for the rest of the story really appeals .

Therefore, The Mist is the movie with a nice twist, not the movie with the nice story.