I'm very, very irritated with Frank Darabont right now. The first half of The Mist had so much promise, but the second half turned ridiculous. And I'm not talking ridiculous in the sense of creatures lurking in an ominous mist outside the store where you're trapped -- I'm talking ridiculous in the sense of what normal people might do when faced with real terror. History tells us that mass suicide is not a likely scenario.
What *really* turned me off was the phony Bible-thumping character. So much so that once her role escalated, I never recovered. I could not bring myself back to the feeling I had in the first 60 minutes -- extremely nervous due to the claustorphobic nature of the set. She was phony because Darabont didn't bother trying to make this woman 1% believable. Does ANYONE in Hollywood know a born-again Christian? Anyone?! Half of her poppycock dialogue alleged to be biblical prophesy was just wild ad-lib on Darabont's part. Bah!
And the "shock" finale was just that -- shock value. No merit. (I'll be kind and warn you to turn away if you don't want to be spoilerized)
Look, you want me to believe that the dad, chick, old lady, and nice geezer sit in the car for 30 seconds after driving who-knows-how-far before deciding they better off themselves? What's to say the mist doesn't stop 50 feet ahead of them? I saw this freakin ending coming a mile away and hated it. Not for the sheer fact that dad turned the gun on everyone, but because it wasn't the time for it. Maybe if they had been in the car 3 days without food and water, surrounded by creatures... but not the immediate sacrifice. "Let's drive as far as we can because we want to survive, dammit!" "Oh, out of gas now? Ok, I had a nice life. Buh-bye."