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Customer Review
Reviewed in the United States on June 2, 2016
so let me start by saying I read the short story back in the early 90's and loved it. The general unknown of what caused the event, the nearly claustrophobic nature of being trapped like that and almost none of the "monsters" having all-encompassing details was great. The characters were well-formed and made me care about them in this impossible situation. This is of course a long-held memory... I watched the movie only this year. (2016)
This movie achieves some of that...
The good: I cared about the characters and was with them in some of the more tense moments. It had obligatory jump moments and enough thrills that it was worth watching for the general fear about it. I'm also going to mention the "end" here as a positive, even though I have it in much detail in the bad below... how is that you may ask? Because while I do not like the ending at all, for reasons below, I do think it was shocking enough that people would talk about it for years to come after seeing it. In that regard, it's probably a success thing... read on to see why I ultimately don't like it.
The bad: the claustrophobia was almost completely absent. Perhaps it's the way the setting was filmed/framed? It just did not have this "closed in" feeling that the story did. (My memory of the story anyway) The store somehow felt bigger than the story made it feel.. I don't know, that may be nit-picky. The fear created in the story was also there, as mentioned in the good above, but it is largely overshadowed by the nihilistic, hopeless way they ended it. The story ended with an impossible hope, but it was still a thread of hope. It had questions that were never answered. In a bid to tie things up neatly, the ending (to me) just sucked the life out of all the stress (Fear and tension is only there when there is a hope...) and left this bitter taste that wrecked the heart of the characters that I cared about. It really reversed the hope those final characters were walking in. I hesitate to call it Godless, as it's not a Christian movie at all... but the way one of the characters (mis)represents God so much early on, demanding blood from them, the lack of any counter-point to that anti-Christ stand was obvious, but to end it the way they did (which was not how the story ended) pretty much validated this anti-God tone. The story was a more even-handed approach to how we need hope to keep going and how that hope is the opposite of what those zealots were walking in.
Overall, the movie is worth watching. Nothing I've said here should stop that. The ending is certainly controversial, as any google search will show you... some of you may love that shock. For this movie, I was not one of those that liked that smack to the face. King himself (I believe) loved the new ending, so there is that as well. Take it for what it's worth, it's still a decent thriller movie to see.
This movie achieves some of that...
The good: I cared about the characters and was with them in some of the more tense moments. It had obligatory jump moments and enough thrills that it was worth watching for the general fear about it. I'm also going to mention the "end" here as a positive, even though I have it in much detail in the bad below... how is that you may ask? Because while I do not like the ending at all, for reasons below, I do think it was shocking enough that people would talk about it for years to come after seeing it. In that regard, it's probably a success thing... read on to see why I ultimately don't like it.
The bad: the claustrophobia was almost completely absent. Perhaps it's the way the setting was filmed/framed? It just did not have this "closed in" feeling that the story did. (My memory of the story anyway) The store somehow felt bigger than the story made it feel.. I don't know, that may be nit-picky. The fear created in the story was also there, as mentioned in the good above, but it is largely overshadowed by the nihilistic, hopeless way they ended it. The story ended with an impossible hope, but it was still a thread of hope. It had questions that were never answered. In a bid to tie things up neatly, the ending (to me) just sucked the life out of all the stress (Fear and tension is only there when there is a hope...) and left this bitter taste that wrecked the heart of the characters that I cared about. It really reversed the hope those final characters were walking in. I hesitate to call it Godless, as it's not a Christian movie at all... but the way one of the characters (mis)represents God so much early on, demanding blood from them, the lack of any counter-point to that anti-Christ stand was obvious, but to end it the way they did (which was not how the story ended) pretty much validated this anti-God tone. The story was a more even-handed approach to how we need hope to keep going and how that hope is the opposite of what those zealots were walking in.
Overall, the movie is worth watching. Nothing I've said here should stop that. The ending is certainly controversial, as any google search will show you... some of you may love that shock. For this movie, I was not one of those that liked that smack to the face. King himself (I believe) loved the new ending, so there is that as well. Take it for what it's worth, it's still a decent thriller movie to see.
