History Literature / TheMist

* OnlyTheLeadsGetAHappyEnding: [[spoiler:Inverted in the film, which compared to the book actually has a more optimistic situation at the end... for the ''world'', much to the absolute despair of the protagonist in light of [[GaveUpTooSoon what he had just done under the belief that all was lost]].]]

* GoMadFromTheIsolation: On the first day, the survivors were logical yet fearful as they were trapped in a store. By the third day's start, everyone but David's group has started to fully buy into Mrs. Carmody's claim that she's a vessel of God with divine protection and that they are only safe by offering [[HumanSacrifice blood sacrifices]] to the monsters.

* FaceOfAThug: The intimidating biker, who we barely know of, says this to Ms. Carmody after listening to her rants.

* HumansAreBastards: It's pretty disgusting and pathetic how quickly fear and fanaticism take over after people took shelter in the supermarket. As Amanda disbelievingly points out, it doesn't even take two days!

Not to be confused with Miguel de Unamuno's novella ''Mist'', or with Creator/JohnCarpenter's ''Film/TheFog1980''.

** All the paintings in David's studio at the beginning are real promotional art created by Creator/DrewStruzan, who also did the poster for this movie. Among them are the CD cover of ''Film/PansLabyrinth'' and the poster for Creator/JohnCarpenter's ''Film/TheThing1982''. It shouldn't come as a surprise that Carpenter directed a similar movie, called ''Film/TheFog1980'' (1980).

* CastingGag: Played with. William Sadler, Jeffrey DeMunn, and Brian Libby all featured in Frank Darabont's "The Green Mile" and "The Shawnshank Redemption."

* CoolOldLady: Mrs. Reppler (first name Hilda in the book, Irene in the movie) may be a tiny old woman, but she proves herself to be one of the most formidable survivors of the group. In the book she uses simple Raid to take down the bugs and spiders that attack them, but in the movie, she uses a makeshift ''blowtorch'' to take down a Grey Widower. In the film she also get's Amanda's book moment of throwing a can of food at Mrs. Carmody, telling her, "Shut up, you miserable buzzard!"

* DownerEnding: The movie, while the novella is more ambigious: [[spoiler:After losing many of their allies to both the monsters and each other (with some dying in front of them no less), David, Amanda, Billy, Dan and Irene reach David's car and escape the supermarket. After driving home to find his wife dead, David drives on but their car eventually runs out of gas. With no sign of escaping the mist, David shoots his son and everybody in the car, but comes up one bullet short to kill himself. He then steps out into the mist to be killed. But instead of monsters, the military emerge from the mist and destroy it as he screams in anguish, because it means that help was '''literally seconds away''' and that he killed five people, including ''his own son'' for no reason, meaning that his actions that got his own group members killed were AllForNothing. You know an ending is dark when the death of the monster and humanity surviving doesn't make it much happier.]] ''Stephen King'' was shocked by the ending, and [[WhyDidntIThinkOfThat wished he had come up with it himself]].

* FaceFullOfAlienWingWong: The MP found AllWebbedUp in the pharmacy. [[spoiler:And, even more horrifiying, David's wife, whose death we do not see... but her webbed-up corpse, split open.]]

* TalkToTheFist: In the film, when [[spoiler:Norm is dragged out by the tentacles and killed]], Jim still tries to pretend none of this was his fault and ''still'' talks smack to David, who spend last few moments fighting for the kid's life. David shuts him up with a right hook, then starts beating him sensless. It's only Ollie's intervention that stops the beating.

* JerkassHasAPoint / VillainHasAPoint: Despite being nothing short of unpleasant, Mrs. Carmody ''did'' advise against venturing outside the grocery store, warning anybody who did leave that they would die out in the mist. Every group that attempted to escape was attacked, with fatalities occurring each time. Justified in that most of those who followed her most likely survived, or at least were not shown to have the same grim outcome as her naysayers did in the film adaptation.

* HobbesWasRight / HumanityIsInsane: Once the people in the store are deprived of technology and social structure, they'll start listening to anyone with a solution to their problems. Carmody's cult starts sacrificing people because they believe it's the only thing keeping the monsters at bay and because [[DirtyCoward they don't want to be sacrificed next]]. As Ollie cynically puts it;

* ApocalypseHow: Depending on how far the mist traveled across the world, the novella and movie both depict an [[ApocalypseHow/Class0 awful regional catastrophe]], at least, and possibly anything ranging from a [[ApocalypseHow/Class4 native multiple species extinction]] to [[ApocalypseHow/Class4 the annihilation of the fabric of the universe]]. [[spoiler:At the end of the film, a heavily-armed military clean-up crew is moving in and clearing the mist, implying a regional rather than worldwide catastrophe.]] In the radio play version at the very end [[spoiler:over the radio from the rest of the country you hear: "Death comes. Death comes for all of us." This is also the last words heard from the Arrowhead Project, which is believed to be where the Mist came from in the first place. Even DarkerAndEdgier.]] The original novella ends with [[spoiler:all of New England, at least, pulled into the mist, and the heroes left with one slender reed of hope four days after the disaster's onset.]]

* BittersweetEnding

* CoolOldGuy

* CosmicHorrorStory: The mist is filled with bizarre, otherworldly creatures, from three-foot-long dragonflies to behemoths too large to see through the mist. It's speculated by the survivors that they come from another dimension reached by the Arrowhead Project. Despite the extreme danger they pose, they are apparently only animals, and seemingly only attack humans when they smell them for food.

** [[spoiler:Myron]], having had his role largely swapped with [[spoiler:Jim]], dies in his place, getting eaten by a Grey Widower on the way to the car. [[spoiler:Ambrose]], who in the novella escapes back to the supermarket while making an aborted car park escape, ends up having his path to safety cut off by the same creatures, and gets pounced upon and audibly torn apart off-screen. Bud Brown takes his place of running back to the store.

** [[spoiler:Dan Miller. In the book, he is killed during the trip to the pharmacy alongside Mike Hatlen and Buddy Eagleton. In the movie, he survives, only to die later during the DownerEnding when David [[MercyKill shoots everyone]] in the Land Cruiser.]]

* EldritchAbomination: [[http://aliens.wikia.com/wiki/Creatures_of_the_Mist The monsters]] in the mist are alien and unfathomable, and their existence seems impossible, as their biology is far removed from anything on earth. The tentacles on the largest monster, the Behemoth, certainly evoke Lovecraftian imagery as well. Although at the end of the day they are biological entities that can bleed and die. They even hunt each other in a fashion not unlike animals from our world. Their baseline viciousness (as opposed to true malevolence that Mrs. Carmody might assign them) does however outmatch our ecosystem by a truly scary margin. That must be some [[DeathWorld seriously hostile alien environment]] they come from.

* GentleGiant: The "Impossibly Tall Creature", a skyscraper-sized monster that appears at the end. Well, at least [[spoiler:it doesn't instantly attack the humans' car.. It's so large (larger in the book, but still utterly gigantic in the film) that it probably doesn't even notice them. Which, given everything else, is probably for the best.]]

* GoMadFromTheIsolation: In the first day the survivors were logical yet fearful as they were trapped in a store. As the story progresses; everyone but David's group start to fully buy into Mrs. Carmody's claim that she's a vessel of God with divine protection and that they are only safe by offering [[HumanSacrifice blood sacrifices]] to the monsters.
* GoMadFromTheRevelation: Jim, one of the members of the pharmacy expedition, is reduced to a gibbering mess upon seeing [[spoiler:the spiders hatch from the MP's body. He joins Carmody's cult after he recovers slightly]].

* GovernmentConspiracy: Although it is never stated outright, the secretive Arrowhead Project at the Shaymore military base is believed by most of the characters to be the cause of the disaster. In the movie one of the soldiers in the store confirms this theory.

** Once again, Mrs. Carmody. She makes a big deal out of what a pious Christian she is, but once she starts to gain influence among the survivors, all her strategies basically boil down to cowardice, scapegoating, and self-preservation under a religious veneer. This is most overt in her whole thing about "expiation" - sacrificing others to protect yourself is, to put it mildly, the opposite of what the Bible says you should do, and her specific demand to sacrifice a ''child'' brings to mind [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moloch Moloch]]. This is tacitly acknowledged in a MythologyGag when, while praying, she uses the phrase "My life for you", a line associated with followers of Randall Flagg, a devil figure in King's other works.

* MilitariesAreUseless: The army is responsible for the disaster, and are incapable of quickly (if at all) fighting back against the horrors they unleashed upon the world. Four days into the mess, David and the other supermarket survivors are still without military help. [[spoiler:Averted at the end of the film version. The military eventually deploys in force and begins to clear out the Mist ecology, ironically [[GaveUpTooSoon supplying the punchline]] to the CruelTwistEnding.]]

** [[spoiler:Ollie has a short breakdown after gunning down Mrs. Carmody. Sure, she was a fanatic madwoman, and convinced her cult to use people as monster chow, but Ollie still felt the guilt of killing another human being]].

* NonMaliciousMonster: The creatures that arrive with the mist are undeniably dangerous, but they don't act out of evil or hatred for mankind, but simple animal instinct, [[HumansAreTheRealMonsters which of course highlights the depths humans are willing to stoop to when ]]...
* NothingIsScarier: Due to the thick mist, several deaths are not actually witnessed, but based on what the people inside the store can tell, it's not pretty out there.

* OurMonstersAreWeird: The {{Giant Spider}}s spin horribly corrosive webs and lay eggs inside corpses (and at least one [[AndIMustScream still-living person]]), and those are the most typical creatures about. Others include the four-winged pterosaur-bats, a largely-unseen creature whose cephalopod tentacles have ''mouths'' instead of suckers, and the... err.. six-legged behemoth covered in prehensile tendrils. Another creature, seen mostly in silhouette only, vaguely resembles a praying mantis the size of a small house.

* PetTheDog
** A minor one, but the cult evidently let the manager back inside after he got separated from the others, despite the fact that his buddies killed their leader. This suggests that, without the poisonous influence of Mrs. Carmody, the cultists quickly reverted back to being ordinary, scared, more-or-less decent people.
** In the book, Bud--who has been quite the hard-ass through the story, insisting that no one eat or drink anything from the store they didn't buy--actually gives Ollie and David good wishes before they leave.

* ScrewThisImOuttaHere: Just as the mist rolls into town, a man decides to try and flee to his car, ignoring Stan's warnings. He fumbles with the keys just as the fog engulfs him. His fate is ambiguous, but judging by his terrified scream and what happens later on in the movie it probably wasn't pretty.
* SexStartsStoryStops: In the original story, David and Amanda--who are both married to someone else--randomly have SexForSolace. This is only minimally brought up again after the fact. This is cut in the film, where David and Amanda still have some ambiguous sexual tension but never sleep together.

* SparedByTheAdaptation: [[spoiler:The fate of the woman with the kids at home was left ambiguous after she left in the book. The film showed that she and her kids managed to survive.]]

* StrawVulcan: Norton and his group of skeptics who leave the store because they don't believe there are any monsters in the mist. Lets back up a step. If the skeptics are right about the mist being natural and stay in the store then the weather will blow over in a few hours to a day or someone will come by looking for the grocery store and update them on the situation - after all, they know there's ''some'' kind of disaster going on, and for all they know the mist itself is some kind of poison gas. They are on their way after a short delay, at most a minor inconvenience. If the other groups are right about the mist and there are monsters outside the best bet for survival is not to go outside to be picked off by monsters. The risk analysis of the situation, however low the probability of lethal monsters, would point to staying in the well stocked grocery store and not wandering off. So of course they choose the 'rational choice' after concluding there are no monsters and immediately decide to leave. Norton tells David right before he leaves that if he's wrong the joke will be on him. Poor decision or not, he is at least willing to admit that much. In the novella, David thinks that Norton is, at some level, committing deliberate suicide.
* TakeOurWordForIt: In the movie, when the biker goes out to get Ambrose's shotgun from his truck, they tie a rope to his waist just to be safe. A few seconds after walking into the fog, the rope starts to rapidly shoot out into the mist and uses up the entirety of its length before rising high into the air and dropping back down. The people inside the store pull the rope back to see that [[spoiler:his legs and torso are gone, and his waist is all that remains.]] In the book, the guy with the rope is one of Norton's "Flat-Earthers" and when it's pulled back [[spoiler:there is only the end of the rope, covered in blood and chewed through.]]

* VillainousBreakdown: While clearly insane, Mrs. Carmody remains rather collected for the most part, with the occasional aggressive outburst. However, it isn't until [[spoiler:she catches David and the others trying to steal food and escape the store]] that she completely wigs out and [[spoiler:screams for [[WouldHurtAChild Billy]], Amanda, and eventually the whole gang to be sacrificed to the monsters.]]
* WhamShot: [[spoiler:A powerfully unexpected shot kicks off the infamous twist ending. After David {{mercy kill}}s the other survivors on his car, he exits the car and looks into the mist, shouting for the monsters to come and kill him. David sees something large in the mist, and his expression changes from one of desperation to one of shock. The shot turns around, and looks over David's shoulder into the mist. The large object emerges from the mist. Instead of a monster like what David and the audience expects, it's a ''tank from the US army''.]]

* WouldHurtAChild: [[spoiler:Mrs. Carmody convinces her cult to sacrifice Billy in hopes of making the creatures lose interest in the cult, and, presumably, because she sees David as a threat to her authority. Ollie shoots her before her followers can act on the order, however.]]

* ApocalypseHow: Depending on how far the mist traveled across the world, the novella and movie both depict an awful regional catastrophe, at least, and possibly anything ranging from a biosphere extinction to the complete annihilation of the fabric of the Universe. [[spoiler:At the end of the film, a heavily-armed military clean-up crew is moving in and clearing the mist, implying a regional rather than worldwide catastrophe.]] In the radio play version at the very end [[spoiler:over the radio from the rest of the country you hear: "Death comes. Death comes for all of us." This is also the last words heard from the Arrowhead project, which is where the Mist came from in the first place. Even DarkerAndEdgier.]] The original novella ends with [[spoiler:all of New England, at least, pulled into the mist, and the heroes left with one slender reed of hope.]]
* ArcWelding: Several plot points come across as much more meaningful if you've read the ''[[Franchise/TheDarkTower Dark Tower]]'' series, which connects multiple Stephen King works to each other. If you have, it's pretty clear that the titular mist was actually a "thinny" (a weak spot in the barrier between parallel worlds), that the creatures from the mist were creatures from "Todash" (the primordial darkness between worlds, whose denizens are commanded by the Crimson King), and that Project Arrowhead's theory about the existence of alternate universes was their first step towards realizing the true nature of the Multiverse. In one scene while praying, Mrs. Carmody says "My life for you", a [[PhraseCatcher phrase commonly associated]] with Randall Flagg, the BigBad of the King Multiverse, implying that if there is a supernatural force guiding her actions, it isn't {{God}}. The movie subtly highlights the connections: the very first scene shows David painting a picture of a gunslinger standing in front of a black tower, which fans will recognize as an illustration of Roland from ''The Dark Tower''.

* MythologyGag:
** David is painting a very [[Film/DollarsTrilogy Man With No Name]]-esque Roland of Gilead, from Stephen King's opus ''Franchise/TheDarkTower'', when the storm hits. The monsters, and the implications of the Arrowhead Project also seem similar to the Todash monsters in that series.
** The line "My life for you," spoken by Mrs. Carmody, has been said by a number of villainous characters in the Dark Tower books. Most notably Trashcan Man in ''Literature/TheStand''.
** The dead creatures liquefy in the same way as the "things" in ''Literature/FromABuick8'', another work by King involving otherworldly monsters.

* NonMaliciousMonster: The creatures that arrive with the mist are undeniably dangerous, but they don't act out of evil or hatred for mankind, but simple animal instinct, [[HumansAreTheRealMonsters which of course highlights the depths humans are willing to stoop to in order to survive]]...

* AdaptationExpansion: There is an extra scene [[spoiler: in which someone is killed and given to the monsters as an offering]], which Creator/StephenKing said [[WhyDidntIThinkOfThat he should have thought of himself when writing the story]]. He has said the same regarding the film's darker ending.

* AmbiguousSituation: Steff's fate is left unknown in the novella, as the road to David's house has too much deadfall to navigate through. [[spoiler: The film does have David reach their home, and shows [[DeathByAdaptation her]] AllWebbedUp outside.]]

* ApocalypseHow: Depending on how far the mist traveled across the world, the novella and movie both depict an awful regional catastrophe, at least, and possibly anything ranging from a biosphere extinction to the complete annihilation of the fabric of the Universe. [[spoiler: At the end of the film, a heavily-armed military clean-up crew is moving in and clearing the mist, implying a regional rather than worldwide catastrophe.]] In the radio play version at the very end [[spoiler: over the radio from the rest of the country you hear: "Death comes. Death comes for all of us." This is also the last words heard from the Arrowhead project, which is where the Mist came from in the first place. Even DarkerAndEdgier.]] The original novella ends with [[spoiler:all of New England, at least, pulled into the mist, and the heroes left with one slender reed of hope.]]
* ArcWelding: Several plot points in ''The Mist'' come across as much more meaningful if you've read the ''[[Franchise/TheDarkTower Dark Tower]]'' series, which connects multiple Stephen King works to each other. If you have, it's pretty clear that the titular mist was actually a "thinny" (a weak spot in the barrier between parallel worlds), that the creatures from the mist were creatures from "Todash" (the primordial darkness between worlds, whose denizens are commanded by the Crimson King), and that Project Arrowhead's theory about the existence of alternate universes was their first step towards realizing the true nature of the Multiverse. In one scene while praying, Mrs. Carmody says "My life for you", a [[PhraseCatcher phrase commonly associated]] with Randall Flagg, the BigBad of the King Multiverse, implying that if there is a supernatural force guiding her actions, it isn't {{God}}. The movie subtly highlights the connections: the very first scene shows David painting a picture of a gunslinger standing in front of a black tower, which fans will recognize as an illustration of Roland from ''The Dark Tower''.

* BadVibrations: [[spoiler:The family is only able to stare up in horror as the entire van bounces from the Behemoth's steps. Its feet tug against and snap power lines, toppling telephone poles with them.]]

** A counterpoint appears in the form of the biker who tells Mrs. Carmody that he believes in God, too, but doesn't think of God as the "bloodthirsty asshole" Mrs. Carmody makes Him out to be. He's presented as a very brave, admirable guy - [[spoiler: even if his HeroicSacrifice turns out to be for AllForNothing]].

* BloodyHandprint: On the glass exit doors left by [[spoiler: Private Jessup.]] It stays there for the rest of the film.

** Also the fate of [[spoiler: Sally, who swells up like a balloon after a sting from one of the insect-like monsters.]]

* BottomlessMagazines: Averted to tragic effect. Amanda only had twelve bullets for her gun, and only twelve shots are fired during the course of the movie. [[spoiler: And then it turns out that twelve bullets were '''[[ItMakesSenseInContext way too many.]]''']]

** The MP webbed up in the pharmacy store [[spoiler: is revealed to be in critical condition from spiders nesting under his skin, until he falls to the floor, and his entire torso explodes with ''thousands of spiders'' crawling out of his corpse.]]
** [[spoiler: Sally, after being stung by one of the giant insects, instantly has her throat swell up until she suffocates.]]
** A couple of David's group members [[spoiler: take acidic web strands from the giant spiders. While one is shot in the leg, the other is shot square in the face.]]
** [[spoiler: After accidentally setting himself on fire whilst attempting to drive the ptero-buzzards out of the market, Joe Eagleton lingers for at least a day in unbearable agony before finally succumbing to his burns. Made even worse because the other characters denied his request for a MercyKill in order to mount a risky expedition to the adjacent pharmacy for painkillers and antibiotics, which wound up getting Joe's brother killed. On top of that, although they returned with the right medicine, it turned out to be too late to save him anyway.]]

* DeathGlare: David gives it to Jim once fighting off the monster that [[spoiler: killed Norm, all while Jim did nothing to help, behaving like a deer in a headlight]]. Prior to that, Jim ridiculed David for being paranoid about "bogeymen" and wanted to be a tough guy. The glare quickly escalates to going physical.

* DownerEnding: The movie, while the novella is more ambigious: [[spoiler: After losing many of their allies to both the monsters and each other (with some dying in front of them no less), David, Amanda, Billy, Dan and Irene reach David's car and escape the supermarket. After driving home to find his wife dead, David drives on but their car eventually runs out of gas. With no sign of escaping the mist, David shoots his son and everybody in the car, but comes up one bullet short to kill himself. He then steps out into the mist to be killed. But instead of monsters, the military emerge from the mist and destroy it as he screams in anguish, because it means that help was '''literally seconds away''' and that he killed five people, including ''his own son'' for no reason, meaning that his actions that got his own group members killed were AllForNothing. You know an ending is dark when the death of the monster and humanity surviving doesn't make it much happier.]] ''Stephen King'' was shocked by the ending, and [[WhyDidntIThinkOfThat wished he had come up with it himself]].

-->'''Ollie''': we need to start barricading the storefront.
-->'''David''': why? we closed the loading dock.
-->'''Ollie''': yeah, [[ExplainExplainOhCrap but the entire front of the store is plain glass!]]

** [[spoiler: The two soldiers trapped in the supermarket hang themselves]] giving credence to the idea that the mist was caused by a [[GovernmentConspiracy secret government experiment]]. In the film, a third is left alive to try and explain the situation. Also, several people in the supermarket commit suicide by overdose. Also in the movie, [[spoiler: the group of survivors plan to kill themselves to avoid a CruelAndUnusualDeath at the hands (claws? Tentacles?) of the creatures in the mist]]. This ends very badly.

* FaceFullOfAlienWingWong: The MP found AllWebbedUp in the pharmacy. [[spoiler: And, even more horrifiying, David's wife, whose death we do not see...but her webbed-up corpse, split open.]]

* GentleGiant: The "Impossibly Tall Creature", a skyscraper-sized monster that appears at the end. Well, at least [[spoiler: it doesn't instantly attack the humans' car.. It's so large (larger in the book, but still utterly gigantic in the film) that it probably doesn't even notice them. Which, given everything else, is probably for the best.]]

* GodIsEvil: Mrs Carmody believes that God can only be appeased through blood and sacrifice. She believed that the event mirrored passages from the Bible and she wanted people to repeat The Binding of Isaac in order to appease him. [[spoiler: At first people didn't believe her but when one of the insects had lost interest in her after landing on her, they started agreeing with her beliefs and believed that Carmody had divine protection by being God's vessel.]]

** Jim Grondin, whose EstablishingCharacterMoment has him pointlessly endangering Norm the bagboy, accusing David of cowardice when he advises against it, and then [[{{Hypocrite}} immediately freezing up]] when Norm needs help (while [[TheSoCalledCoward David and Ollie spring into action]]). Jim comes across as a selfish DirtyCoward throughout the movie, and [[spoiler: eventually becomes one of Mrs. Carmody's most fervent supporters.]]

* KillItWithFire: Fire is very effective against the monsters. A torch takes down one of the pterodactyl monsters, Irene uses an aerosol flamethrower to kill a spider monster, [[spoiler: and the military uses flamethrowers to clear away the mist at the end]].

* LetsGetDangerous: Meek, unassuming assistant manager Ollie Weeks proves that he's actually pretty handy with a pistol, much to the surprise and unease of his boss. He makes every shot he takes with his handgun, a phenomenal feat considering how terrifying and weird the monsters are, while maintaining presence of mind enough to refuse to take shots that would endanger other people. [[spoiler: Well, right up until he has to kill a person and has a nervous breakdown because of it...]] In general, he handles the crisis/subsequent nightmare better than everybody else except for maybe David, but David is the main protagonist so this is expected.

* MamaBear: [[TooDumbToLive Call her what you will]], but the woman in the beginning who leaves the store alone proves she is one. Could ''you'' leave your young children alone without trying to get back to them? Oh, and [[spoiler: she survives ''and'' rescues her kids, appearing with them among the evacuees at the very end. And though the movie doesn't go into it, it's possible that she survived due to leaving early when there may have been fewer creatures about.]]

* MaybeMagicMaybeMundane: Did the flying scorpion not sting Mrs. Carmody simply because it was an animal that acted unpredictably (as animals do)? Did it not sting her because she remained calm and didn't panic it? Did Mrs. Carmody's prayer really have something to do with it? And at the end, [[spoiler: she says that by sacrificing Billy and Amanda the monsters will be dissuaded, and Billy and Amanda are among the last characters to die before the mist is cleaned up.]]

* MilesGloriosus: Both Jim and Myron talk big, projecting a tough guy persona, and treat David with contempt for having "jitters". When [[spoiler: Norm]] is attacked by the tentacles, they completely freeze, unable to to ''anything'', while it's David and Ollie who try their very best to save [[spoiler: the kid]].

** As the surviving heroes [[spoiler: pull away in David's car toward the end, you can see what might be this on the faces of the people still inside the store. Without Mrs. Carmody's constant encouragement of their worst impulses, they seem to be realizing just what exactly she has turned them all into.]]

* NotSoInvincibleAfterAll: The creatures in the mist are an incomprehensible threat to the frightened, trapped civilians, but in the movie at least [[spoiler: they are no match against trained soldiers armed with automatic weapons, tanks, and flamethrowers]].

* ReligionOfEvil: [[spoiler: After Mrs. Carmody is able to create a cult, she convinces them to sacrifice the soldier to the creatures to keep them at bay and is about to try to sacrifice Billy before Ollie finally shoots her.]]
* RightForTheWrongReasons: In the film, Mrs. Carmody ends up being entirely correct in saying that everyone should stay holed up in the grocery store in order to survive. [[spoiler: Her reasoning behind ''why'', however, is completely skewed and ends up creating more problems than it solves given that it involves forming a tyrannical religious cult that is totally down with human sacrifices.]]
* SanitySlippage: This happens to the majority of the store patrons, but special mention goes to Jim, who grows more and more shell-shocked from the monsters and the deaths caused by them, before he [[GoMadFromTheRevelation finally snaps]] and [[spoiler: joins Mrs. Carmody's cult]].

* SparedByTheAdaptation: [[spoiler: The fate of the woman with the kids at home was left ambiguous after she left in the book. The film showed that she and her kids managed to survive.]]

* TakeOurWordForIt: In the movie, when the biker goes out to get Ambrose's shotgun from his truck, they tie a rope to his waist just to be safe. A few seconds after walking into the fog, the rope starts to rapidly shoot out into the mist and uses up the entirety of its length before rising high into the air and dropping back down. The people inside the store pull the rope back to see that [[spoiler: his legs and torso are gone, and his waist is all that remains.]] In the book, the guy with the rope is one of Norton's "Flat-Earthers" and when it's pulled back [[spoiler: there is only the end of the rope, covered in blood and chewed through.]]
* TalkToTheFist: In the film, when [[spoiler: Norm is dragged out by the tentacles and killed]], Jim still tries to pretend none of this was his fault and ''still'' talks smack to David, who spend last few moments fighting for the kid's life. David shuts him up with a right hook, then starts beating him sensless. It's only Ollie's intervention that stops the beating.

* WhamShot: [[spoiler: A powerfully unexpected shot kicks off the infamous twist ending. After David {{mercy kill}}s the other survivors on his car, he exits the car and looks into the mist, shouting for the monsters to come and kill him. David sees something large in the mist, and his expression changes from one of desperation to one of shock. The shot turns around, and looks over David's shoulder into the mist. The large object emerges from the mist. Instead of a monster like what David and the audience expects, it's a ''tank from the US army''.]]

* WouldHurtAChild: [[spoiler: Mrs. Carmody convinces her cult to sacrifice Billy in hopes of making the creatures lose interest in the cult, and, presumably, because she sees David as a threat to her authority. Ollie shoots her before her followers can act on the order, however.]]

* DaylightHorror: Much of the movie actually takes place during the day, but since it's so foggy outside, it's hard to tell either way. The attack by the various flying monsters is the one major setpiece that specifically happens at night.

* EldritchAbomination: [[http://aliens.wikia.com/wiki/Creatures_of_the_Mist The monsters]] in the mist are alien and unfathomable, and their existence seems impossible, as their biology is far removed from anything on earth. The tentacles on the largest monster, the Behemoth, certainly evoke Lovecraftian imagery as well. Although at the end of the day they are biological entities that can bleed and die.

* CoitusEnsues: In the original story, David and Amanda--who are both married to someone else--randomly have SexForSolace. This is only minimally brought up again after the fact. This is cut in the film, where David and Amanda still have some ambiguous sexual tension but never sleep together.

* TheLoad: By the end of the movie, it is openly surprising and ''infuriating'' that the main characters don't [[JustEatGilligan kill]] Jim Grondin. First, he disbelieves that there is anything in the mist and says they're cowards for not letting Norm go out - then when they open the back gate and Norm is attacked by ''a giant, mouthed, clawed tentacle monster'', Jim doesn't help as Norm is ''slowly'' dragged outside, but simply stands there gaping in terror. Even these ''might'' be forgiven as first he had no idea there were monsters out there, and the first sight of a monster might make anyone freeze up in shock. But after that it's absurd: when all of the alien wasps and pterodactyls are attracted to the light from the lanterns they have in the windows, the main characters realize this and start turning them off - while Jim panics and for ''no discernible reason'' starts frantically running around turning on all of their battery-powered floodlights. The monsters are attracted by the extra lights and ''many'' people die. After that, when they're in the pharmacy, and the acid-spiders show up, instead of staying quiet like everyone else and hoping not to attract their attention, Jim panics yet again and starts shouting uncontrollably. Seriously, at that point, why doesn't anyone just kill Jim to ensure their own survival? And this is ''before'' Jim starts [[spoiler: actively trying to kill them.]]

* ShootTheShaggyDog: [[spoiler:In the ending, after running out of gas in their unsuccessful attempt at escaping the mist, the lead character mercy-kills his entire party including his own son (it would've been group ''suicide'' instead of euthanasia, but he was one bullet short). About one minute later the military finally shows up with tanks and flamethrowers, along with cars and cars full of survivors, meaning the insane cult they had just left to escape likely survived. To top it all off, among the survivors, he sees the woman brave enough to leave the supermarket at the beginning of the movie, and her children are fine as well]].

* GainaxEnding: The book. David, Mrs. Reppler, Amanda, and Billy hunker down in a Howard Johnson's for the night. David is still holding onto hope that they'll find safety somewhere in the mist, but acknowledges that their situation isn't looking good.

* ActionizedAdaptation: Some of the monster attacks are more action-packed in the film than in the novella. In the novella, only one bird-thing gets through a broken window before David and the others kill it, whereas the book has a bird thing and several of the deadly bugs swarm in and take a few more lives. The original expedition to the pharmacy is rather short-lived, while the film's version is longer and has a few changes, such as giving Mrs. Reppler an improvised flamethrower as opposed to just a can of Raid.

* VillainousBreakdown: While clearly insane, Mrs. Carmody remains rather collected for the most part, with the occasional aggressive outburst. However, it isn't until [[spoiler:she catches David and the others trying to steal food and escape the store]] that she completely wigs out and [[spoiler:screams for [[WouldHurtAChild Billy]], Amanda, and eventually [[KillEmAll the whole gang]] to be sacrificed to the monsters.]]

* AxCrazy: Mrs Carmody. She gets more and more bonkers until [[VillainousBreakdown she tries to have]] ''[[KillEmAll the entire group killed!]]''

* AnachronismStew: Delibrate example. The film is set around 2006/2007, yet the Army soldiers are all dressed in 1970s-era uniforms and equipment.