The Mist

I believe the appropriate thing to say at this point is : 


WARNING - CONTAINS SPOLIERS


Or one spoiler actually : in this film, The Mist, what I watched last night, the kid dies.  OK now that is out of the way, I found it raised some interesting questions.


It's a general rule of the cinematic idiom that kids don't get killed - the innocent usually survive.  There are exceptions to this - such as if the film in question is depicting an event that actually happened in which children died.  It would be a bit mad to show all the children being counted out of the wreckage in this case - all safe and well!  Phew!


Also I suppose if the death is unavoidable - like if you were depicting a nuclear war.


But in a film like 'The Mist' - which is basically about a bunch of people being besieged by very nasty creatures that accompany the titular weather condition - there is a choice about who survives and who dies that the story-teller can make.


Now basically, I thought the death of the child in this film was unnecessarily cruel.  Of course the 'rules' of cinematic vocabulary may be synthetic, and this may be reason enough to break them, but then the whole medium is synthetic anyway, isn't it?


I think most parents find the death of a child unbearable enough to make its use as a plot device unjustifiable in this case.


The film - which is fantastically well executed - has a frivolous theme really.  Let's face it - weird monsters eating people and grand guignol violence in general is... fun.  It's a laugh to watch a scary film and scream and feel the adrenalin buzz of safe danger - like on a rollercoaster.


The genre demands that this frivolity is wrapped up as something serious - but I think the horror genre shouldn't get carried away with its own seriousness.  Take itself too seriously, I suppose.


Basically, you can't have big silly monsters and kill children in the same film - the ridiculousness of one doesn't sit with the appalling reality of the other.


Now my reaction to these things has changed greatly since I became a parent. In fact when Freddie was a baby I wouldn't even have been able to watch a film like 'The Mist' at all.  I suppose this is a natural parental instinct - it's very interesting.  Now he is a bit older I find I can bear these things a little more.  I just say this because, as with all criticism, the individual POV of the critic must be taken into account.


Also, I am not talking about censorship here - that's a whole different debate. A film like 'The Mist' should not be censored - on the contrary I would encourage you to watch it and see what you think.  


I am glad I did watch it and that it raised these questions - because I am interested in my own reactions to things and in these moral questions.  I like being challenged by a film - so in that sense I enjoyed the harrowing experience of watching 'The Mist'. 


I don't sit there in front of any work of art and demand to agree with what it does...