Few movie endings provoke such mixed reactions as that of ‘The Fog’. Some of us adore it, but there are also people who hate it with all their hearts. In addition, it must be taken into account that it alters the outcome of the book of Stephen King that adapts, but Frank Darabont He is very clear that he made the right decision and has also revealed what the writer’s reaction was when he found out about it.
“Life doesn’t always give you a happy ending.”
Darabont has chatted with Slash Film about the 15th anniversary of the premiere of ‘The Fog’, reviewing a multitude of aspects of that stupendous horror film. What interests us now is what he comments on the end of it, clarifying both why he opted for such a devastating resolution and that he would not have gone ahead with it if he had not had King’s support:
Hey, I like a happy ending as much as anyone. It’s satisfying. I understand a happy ending, God knows. But I also love ‘Night of the Living Dead’. I also love ‘The Thing’. I also love those movies that dare to challenge the public. Sometimes things don’t work out and sometimes you make the wrong decisions even though you have good intentions. Life is so. Life doesn’t always give you a happy ending, right? In fact, I wonder if it doesn’t.
When Steve [King] He read the script and I said, “I won’t do it if you don’t want me to.” He said, “We need movies that dare to piss people off. We need movies like that too.” We need that ‘Night of the Living Dead’ thing, where it’s not tied up in a pretty bow and there’s just this reassuring happy sticker from Hallmark.
Listen, that’s what ‘Life Sentence’ is. It has that happy touch. They’ve been through exhausting things, but at the end of the day, there’s a big hug. It’s like a really big Hallmark card at the end. And that’s fine. That’s the kind of movie it was.
But if that’s our steady diet, then we’re just eating McDonald’s cheeseburgers. We are never testing anything else. It is limiting us.
I can only agree with Darabont in his appreciation that not all stories can have a happy ending. Nor is it a plan to force the opposite to happen, but in the case of ‘The Fog’ I think the film wins over the character of Thomas Jane make such a drastic decision.
In fact, the only downside I can put on ‘The Fog’ is that it is still the last film directed by Darabont. We need more of his work, and even better if it is to dive back into the Stephen King universe. Three titles as indisputable as ‘Life imprisonment’, ‘The green mile’ and ‘La Niebla’ endorse him.
In Espinof: