In modern horror, the haunted house is inside your head

These movies make you wonder whether the world has gone mad, or you have.

- John Lui

Some years ago, I was in a van with other journalists on a trip across Malaysia. Because there would be a DVD player on board, I offered to bring a disc and everyone agreed that it would be a great idea. Since I was a movie reviewer, they thought it would be like snagging Jamie Oliver to cook at a dinner party. It was going to be spectacular.

So as we motored along I popped in the apocalypse horror movie The Mist (2007), adapted from a Stephen King novel about survivors of a monster invasion taking refuge in a supermarket.

When the film ended, there was silence, which I took to be awestruck gratitude. Then the masses erupted and wasn't it a political pundit, I believe it was Goebbels, who said that nothing unites a people like hate. The rabble were roused. I had to keep apologising for the film, which they called "awful, and with the worst ending" except with more swearing.

Looking back, some lessons can be learnt. Audiences don't like movies that make them feel bad, which is why the concept of uplifting movies exists and not the opposite. The Mist is the opposite of an uplifting movie, but only in the sense that it is dispiriting, pessimistic and mournful. Other than that, it's fantastic.