31 Fates Worse Than Death (#1: The Mist)

That twisted gut-punch of an ending. That's our final fate worse than death. Some admire the scene, some detest it, but there's no denying that Frank Darabont's (slight) deviation from the source material gives his Stephen King adaptation a real ... impact ... once the final frames show up. We'd just survived two hours of The Mist full of giant monsters and the true evil that men (and women) can do -- and just when things look like they couldn't possibly get any bleaker ... well, either you've seen the film and you know what I mean, or you haven't seen the film and probably shouldn't. Especially if you're a parent. I don't even have children and this final twist had me almost in tears.

And with that we close our month-long look at various Fates Worse Than Death! As always, we are truly grateful to the cinematic arts for letting us experience all sorts of truly horrible things, safe in the knowledge that no matter how horrific things may get ... whew, it's all just a movie. And boy do we love our safely fictional horrors.

Happy Halloween!