It was perfectly constructed for adapting into a movie. The plot was narrowed down to the bone so that multiple characters didn’t have to be composited and intricately integrated subplots would not require complete elimination. The story had it all: it was a heartbreaking domestic tragedy of a family torn apart taking place within a who-will-survive disaster epic. Opportunities for terrifying special effects nestled up against intense dramatic confrontations between apocalyptic evangelical Christians and paranoid conspiracy theorists. All built upon a foundation of never getting to know for sure what is really going on. Topping everything off with being based on the latter 20th century’s most elusive literary rarity: a great ending to a Stephen King story. There was absolutely, positively no way that even a moderately talented filmmaker could possibly screw up the greatest gift King ever gave Hollywood. Unless, of course, for some asinine reason they decided to do something as pointlessly inexplicable as changing the sublime perfection of the ambiguous ending that served to explain nothing in favor of an ending which not only clarified every last mystery, but did so in an excruciatingly calculated focus-group demonstration of pure emotional manipulation lacking any sense of coherence with anything that came before.
What qualifies The Mist for serious argument as the greatest thing Stephen King has ever written is, in a word, its ending. Arguably, nobody in the history of literature can suck you into a story so quickly that you become completely invested in it as King. But even his most diehard fans will have to admit that coming out on the other side is not nearly so universally satisfying. King is truly a master at getting you past the first page. It is practically impossible to read the first page of anything King has ever published and not feel compelled to follow the story to page two. From there, the way things go for the typical reader is they suddenly get startled by something going on in the world outside and realize that they’ve gotten one-hundred pages in without even realizing. That is how good King is at the art of beginning a story.
When it comes the ending it, the number of universally acknowledged fully satisfying endings can be counted on one hand. And some of those hands only need three fingers. The Dead Zone. Storm of the Century. The Mist. One can argue, of course, because everybody has their favorites, but one thing which cannot be denied is that this particular list comprising a novel, a TV miniseries and a novella all feature profoundly satisfying endings. Unless, of course, by great ending is meant that every unknown has been explained to logical satisfaction. In that case, scratch The Mist off the list, grab a beer with the narrator’s father and complain about Alfred Hitchcock Presents.
The Mist in its novella form begins with one of King’s all-time greatest opening lines:
“This is what happened.”
From that line, the narrator proceeds to recount one of King’s all-time greatest stories which attains that greatness precisely because he resists any and all urge to offer anything close to a clear and definite explanation of what happened. Instead, breaking with tradition, the story moves with brilliantly manipulated precision toward an ending that is stunningly coherent, daring to diverge not one iota from the tone, mood and thematic overlay of everything which has come before. All leading to not just the greatest closing lines to be found anywhere in King’s massive body of work but one of the greatest closers in the history of horror or science fiction or whatever generic hybrid of the two to which the story most accurately belongs.
“Two words that sound a bit alike.
One of them is Hartford.
The other is hope.”
No explanation of the “this” that “happened.” Just a story about what “happened” being “this.” The ending extends no promise to the reader that everybody is going to be okay. Nor does it intimate that something horrible is just around the corner. Ultimately, all the narrator can offer the reader at the end is a town and a noun. And the miracle of this tale—a miracle somehow, bizarrely and incomprehensibly missed by Hollywood even though the narrator spells it right out for them near the end with his warning that no neat and tidy conclusion is forthcoming—is that a town and a noun is all the ending The Mist needs to earn Stephen King a lifetime redemption for all those great beginnings end with such heartbreaking disappointment.
