Stephen King's stories, whether novel or novella form, are very precise and intricate things. They are rich with description, character study and minute observations on things which might not seem relevant at first glance, but will have significant impact on the tale at some point. In my opinion, there have only been two truly great tales which have made the successful transition to screen: The Dead Zone and the original version of 'Salem's Lot(the 2004 mini-series which starred Rob Lowe should have all copies burned and never be spoken of again). In order to make a Stephen King story for the big screen, writers and direc-tors usually have to not only edit the material severely, but also dumb it down.

     And here begins the problem with the newest adaptation, Stephen King's The Mist.

     The story begins in a small Maine town, where a heavy storm has just hit, knocking over trees and downing power all over. David Drayton(Thomas Jane), his wife Stephanie(Kelly Collins Lintz) and their young son Billy(Nathan Gamble) live near the lake, and their house has likewise been devastated by a tree which has fallen into the study where David does his painting. As David, Billy and their crotchety neighbor Brent(Andre Braugher) head into town to get supplies at the supermarket, they witness a strange mist seeping in from the mountains across the lake, but think nothing of it.

     Once the trio gets into town however, things change rapidly. In a small town, people tend to know each other better, so when townsman Dan Miller(Jeffrey DeMunn) runs into the supermarket with his face covered in blood and screams "There's something in the mist! Close the doors!" folks tend to listen. The store manager closes and locks the doors as Dan relates the tale of how something in the mist grabbed up another man and killed him. As the mist rolls in, covering the store, speculation runs the gamut from poison gas to military experiments gone wrong. When a store clerk is snatched up and killed by some type of tentacled beast in full view of David and other witnesses though, and insects the likes of which no one has ever seen swarm out-side, some folks like the overly religious Mrs. Carmody(Marcia Gay Harden) begin to believe the end of times has arrived.

     Part of the problem with portraying believers of the Christian faith in movies is that very few writers know how to write a well-balanced character in general, and certainly not in this instance. Christian believers are either quiet folk who'll wish you a "bless-ed day" or hard-core "you're all going to burn in hell" types, with little or no middle ground. That's the issue with the Carmody character in this film: she's not just hard-core, she's ultra hard-core. When a young man is killed by folks in the store who too-easily become her followers, Marcia Gay Harden as Carmody is a sublime enough actress that she allows her character to register some shock first, but lets it quickly give way to pride in the "sacrifice" to God almighty. The rest of the time however, writer/director Frank Darabont(director on two other King book-to-screen projects, The Green Mile and The Shawshank Redemption) allows her to be nothing more than a one-note character, and this is the unfortunate concept which seeps into the mainstream mind when one comes to envisioning your everyday Christian.

     The rest of the movie itself is an unfortunate snoozer. There are very few ways left to genuinely frighten people anymore; in cinema we've pretty much seen it all and done it all...and after the events of 9/11, we've pretty much had all the real horror we'll ever need to experience in this lifetime. When crafting the CGI creatures which attack the store and its unwilling inhabitants, the effects by KNB EFX Group and CafeFX are sadly uneven. The tentacles of the first great beast which attacks are woefully inadequate and far too fake to convey any dread or sense of urgency, while the ones for the deadly insects themselves are startlingly well-rendered. There is one genuinely creepy scene where David leads a group to the pharmacy next door to get emergency supplies for injured comrades, and they encounter larger than standard spider-like creatures. Most people are inherently afraid of anything with more than four legs, so this scene is well done overall.

     The Mist isn't so much a horror movie overall either, as much as it is a character study. When David and a few others specu-late early on that if they stay in the store too long, Carmody will pull others over to her dangerously narrow point of view, a young teacher named Amanda(Silent Hill's Laurie Holden) naively tries to convince them that human beings are inherently good at heart and will have the ability to see through Carmody's delusions. Naturally, she turns out to be dead wrong. The prob-lem with having a one-noter like Carmody preaching biblical scripture nonstop is that it tends to make one feel like they're in Sunday school, and brings about in its turn feelings of resent-ment toward the character and the situation entire, if no one does anything about it. And with all the back-and-forth bickering on what's going on, the film quickly becomes an oversized sleep-ing pill. That is, until the ending.

     As is the policy here, I will of course not reveal the ending. I will say that it differs wildly from the original novella, and that it was such a surprise that I didn't see it coming. I have to say that if it's not the best ending of the year, it certainly is the most ironic...and I mean that in a good way.

     I wish I could recommend Stephen King's The Mist to you, but in all good conscience, I can't. It simply isn't that good of a film, and for a horror movie, there's very little of that essential ingred-ient to be found. What I can suggest however, is that you head to your local multiplex, watch a good movie, time it out properly, then sneak into this one in the last fifteen minutes.

     Because the ending is totally worth it.