Book Review: The Mist

The Mist
by Stephen King

The Mist was recently released in theaters last year. Of course, this means that there has to be a paperback re-release of the novella- complete with advertising that it is 'Now a Major Motion Picture' on the cover. I have little intention of seeing the movie and have mostly read the book due to the recommendation of a friend, and since it was re-released last year, it falls into my territory of cleared to review, or mock excessively enough.

Truth be told, it was an entertaining enough read for what it was. It has however, made it quite clear that I seem to be completely unaffected by horror. Nothing came off as too creepy in the book honestly, but then again I haven't watched many effective horror movies either. Maybe I'm just a bit too cynical to be taken into any sort of horror, or it may just be the book comes off a bit ridiculous at times.

When I picked up the book, I thought The Mist in question would be something cool and bad ass like some sort of flesh eating bacteria, or a poisonous gas, or some deadly neurotoxin that turns people homicidal. It turns out to be a bunch of gigantic man-eating creatures hiding in the mist. Personal preference strikes again, as supernatural monsters never really intrigued me.

I do not find tentacles frightening. Ever. The internet has made the concept of tentacles being instruments of horror completely absurd to me. Maybe if I am attacked by an octopus or squid and survive, my opinion will change, but until then, I just laughed at the whole scene of a bag boy being dragged away by the mysterious tentacle monster.

Then there was the completely ridiculous subplot where the protagonist, an artist from New England, a real stretch from the protagonist of most King novels of writers from New England, lusts after one of the women who happened to be trapped in a supermarket in fear of the strange mist. King then inserts a completely random scene where the protagonist and the women sneak off and have a random hump off which really added nothing to the story and just came off as bizarre. He later escapes the supermarket with the woman, but the fact that he drags along two other people(one his son, completely understandable), one being he has no sexual attraction to makes the love or lust link for bringing her along quite weak.

The characters get kind of absurd too – now I've never been trapped in a supermarket by some supernatural force, but I have enough faith in humanity that people wouldn't start taking crazy woman's ramblings for human sacrifice seriously enough to start forming a cult around her in that situation. Maybe one or two, but not as many as portrayed in the book. The woman they followed is portrayed as someone with a strong force of personality, yes, but strong personalities are ignored all the same if they start promoting insanity like human sacrifice, especially in a modern year like 1980, the year of the book's initial publication.

Then comes the biggest sin, which could of at least redeemed the book with a mystery element- the classic non-ending, which he even points out as a non-ending. Pointing it out, of course, doesn't really help things. There are hints to what caused the book's title event of a strange mist swarming over the region, but King goes with the non-ending, which ALWAYS has, and ALWAYS will piss me off. You read along to a story, hoping to get some resolution....then, nope, nothing. I guess it's suppose to instill despair for the characters for the reader, but doesn't change the fact that it's lazy. Another common criticism of King's work is that he rarely writes a good ending, and only the incredibly unlikely chance he ever reads it, and even if he does he's probably figured it out now- cutting out the ending is like not putting an answer down on the test. You still fail at the ending.

So much from taking a recommendation from that friend again, especially in the avenue of horror. The Mist isn't really scary to me at all. Maybe I'll try horror again down the line in my broadening of the horizons, but for now, I think I'm going to back off before I become that much more cynical. Again, it was entertaining for what it was, maybe you scare easier than I do, so maybe you should give it a try – but if tentacles make you giggle instead of the hair sitting up on your neck, you'll probably want to pass.