FAQ for
The Mist (2007)

"The Host of Seraphim" by Dead Can Dance.

The book's ending is much more ambiguous than the movie. In the story, only four people make it out to the car alive: David, Billy, Amanda Dumfries, and Irene Reppler. After leaving the supermarket, David attempts to return home but large trees have blocked the driveway. David convinces himself that if his wife were quick enough, she could have secured herself in the house, but her fate is ultimately unknown. After driving a while, Irene recommends David try the radio. After stopping at an abandoned motel for the night, David continues listening to a portable radio and thinks he hears a single word on one station, which he knows broadcasts out of Hartford. He estimates how much gas he has left with plans on making it to Hartford, but also states the danger of being outside the car to siphon fuel, and does not rule out how the movie ended as an option. (In the story, the gun only had three bullets remaining.) The novel closes and is revealed to be a written recollection of the events in the grocery store by David, which he intends on leaving in the hotel.

While we don't see what happens to them, they walk out into the mist, and the Biker (Who tied the rope to his waist) went out with them to get the shotgun. All the focus is on the inside of the store, feeding the rope through the door. The biker gets killed moments later, which leads us to believe; whatever got him, killed Norton and the others. Later on in the film when some of the characters are discussing escaping, they refer to 'ending up like Norton and his group'. So the people in the film believe he was killed. The only point to argue that Norton may have survived is the woman who left the store after the initial outbreak to go to her children is seen in the military convoy with her kids at the very end of the film. So if she survived, there's a chance Norton might have as well.

No, that was the Military Police officer who was seen coming into the grocerie store to tell Jessup and the two other soldiers that all leaves were cancelled. He mentioned he was going to check the pharmacy and to meet him at his jeep. He leaves, then moments later the mist clouds the town.

A complex and intriguing tale that's more about humanity than a bunch of monsters. -- David Levin, Reel.com

One of the scariest King films since Stanley Kubrick's The Shining. -- Tash Robinson, The Onion's A.V. Club

Good and creepy, The Mist comes from a Stephen King novella and is more the shape, size and quality of the recent 1408, likewise taken from a King story, than anything in the persistently fashionable charnel house inhabited by the "Saw" and "Hostel" franchises. -- Michael Phillips, Chicago Tribune

If you want an explanation for the insect monsters (and this is not really giving anything away), there is speculation that they arrived through a rift in the space-time continuum. Rifts in s-t continuums are one of the handiest inventions of science fiction. -- Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times

Screw-loose doomsday thriller works better as a gross-out B-movie than as a psychological portrait of mankind under siege, marred by one-note characterizations and a tone that veers wildly between snarky and hysterical. -- Justin Chang, Variety

A MASTERPIECE! One of the most shocking movie endings EVER! -- Pete Hammond, Maxim

A wickedly entertaining thrill ride! -- Richard Roeper, Ebert and Roeper

The Mist is not only one of the best movies of 2007, it's one of the best horror movies ever made. Period. --Maryann Johanson, The Flick Filosopher