The Mist

Posted by Nathan Deen (nathan@filmschoolrejects.com) on November 22, 2007

The Mist is a run-of-the-mill entry into the thriller genre; good in spurts but ultimately succumbs to too many cliches and the presence of one of the most annoying characters in motion picture history. The film is based on the novel by the master of horror Stephen King and directed by Frank Darabont, who made two of the best films of the 1990’s with The Shawshank Redemption and The Green Mile, which were also adapted from King novels. It is surprising then that he fumbles this project. Despite the fact that Darabont has made two films based on King novels, The Mist seems like a very unusual choice for him and is certainly far different from anything else he’s ever done.

The film opens with a shot of our hero, David Drayton (Thomas Jane, The Punisher), who is an artists that designs movie posters. This shot is somewhat of a gimmick. Those who know the works of Stephen King will realize the poster David is designing is based on his Dark Tower series. Perhaps that is a subliminal advertisement for an upcoming film project. Anyways, there is a nasty storm brewing and David and his family wake up the next morning to find that a tree has crashed into their house. David takes his son, Billy (Nathan Gamble), and his neighbor Brent (Andre Braugher, Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer), who’s car was damaged during the storm, into town to a market square to pick up some food and supplies. While at the grocery store, terror suddenly sweeps across the town in the form of an engulfing mist. Inside the mist are deadly creatures that leave everyone inside the grocery store fighting for their lives.

Darabont seems to be more focused on thrills and blood than anything else. He maybe a veteran director when it comes to Stephen King but he hasn’t actually made a horror suspense film before. The movie leaves the viewer unsatiated in terms of origin details. Where did this mist and these creatures come from? All signs point to a military incident, but no cut and dry explanation is given. Darabont should have inserted a scene at the beginning at this military base that supposedly created the problem to give us some sort of setup and idea of what to expect. I was surprised that Darabont elected to show these insect like creatures, which are missing the detail of good CGI work and range in size from small to gigantic. I would have preferred it if were just one giant monster lurking in the mist and no clear shot of it was given to keep us wondering until the end what’s really out there.

What is most surprising is how cliched the movie feels. At times it resembles your average cheap horror flick. Characters that we haven’t gotten to know very well put balls over brains and lead themselves into a gruesome death. Then there’s the mist itself. It’s an obvious tool to produce thrills with. With the exception of one scene, Darabont telegraphs the viewer that something is going to pop-up from the mist on to the window. I will give credit to Darabont for what he did with the ending. His film, unlike so many others, does not fall to a predictable conclusion and the final scene is utterly shocking and heartbreaking. The ending is so good you wish you had a better beginning and middle to go along with it.

The cast includes Jane, Marica Gay Harden, Toby Jones and William Sadler. Jane is very agreeable as David, who is easily the most normal of all the people trapped in the store. I didn’t think I’d ever say this about Marcia Gay Harden, who plays Mrs. Carmody: she is without a doubt the biggest Achilles heel of this film. She is a preachy, Old Testament believing nutcase who thinks that modern Christianity is heresy and is convinced that the events taking place in the film are signs of the apocalypse. She does not shut up throughout almost the entire film because after everything that happens, there is no evidence to prover her wrong. Darabont is valiantly trying to explore how people deal with each other in a crisis, but in this case annoyance becomes a major problem. On the plus side though, Toby Jones as a cashier named Ollie has become my new personal hero.

Compared to this year’s earlier Stephen King inspired thriller 1408, The Mist is a letdown, especially in the hands of such a gifted director. 1408 was all-together suspenseful, character driven, and got into your head as much as John Cusack’s. While it has its moments, The Mist is just a missed opportunity due to poor execution. It is strange when you think about it though. With it’s perfect conclusion to the 120 frustrating minutes before it, the movie is disappointing and yet also unforgettable.

Grade: C

Release Date: November 21, 2007
Rated: R for violence, terror and gore, and language.
Running Time: 127 min.
Cast: Thomas Jane, Marcia Gay Harden, Laurie Holden
Director: Frank Darabont
Screenplay: Frank Darabont, Stephen King (novella)
Studio: Dimension Films
Official Website: Click Here

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Butch Audacity

I disagree about your review of "The Mist." I felt "The Mist" was a really good monster movie that Hollywood hasn't made in years. One of the strong points about the movie was the fact the director decided not to set the viewer up immediately with a quick, cliched explanation of the events. True horror should have some mystery, not some lame drawn-out explanation that wastes the viewer's time. This is the reason why "The Birds" is still a great horror film, even forty years after its first opening. The monsters were really great and I'm glad that they showed something, but not everthing about some of the bigger monsters. Some of the creatures were partially designed by Berni Wrightson who has illustrated many a monster comic including Swamp Thing and various stories in Heavy Metal, Creepy and Eerie magazine. Peter Von Sholly, another great comic artist, also appears to havedesign some of the monstrousities. I liked the way the movie suggested a alien ecosystem has invaded the land. Florida has similar problems, but to a lesser degree, with cane toads and burmese pythons, nad nile monitor lizards.
I also disagree about your critique of Marcia Gay Harden, who did an excellent job as religious zealot. Having growing up in the town that inspired the book, "Satanic Panic" by Jeffrey Victor, I can easily see how desperate people can jump on the hysterical holy-roller band wagon.

Nate Deen

I think it could still have used that setup scene in the beginning. It doesn't have to feel cliched as long as it's quick. Just look at the recent monster and great flick "The Host." The setup scene with those scientist pouring toxic chemicals into the river took all of four minutes. I'm on the other side of you here. I like to know why, which is the reason I didn't think the Birds was great. Good, but not one of Hitchcock's best.

Nate Deen

I'm not criticizing Marcia Gay Harden, I'm just saying that Darabont had too many overly long scenes with her preaching.

Butch Audacity

I agree with you "The Host was a great movie. I enjoyed the perspective of a giant monster through South Korean eyes. I am also with you about Ollie. It's good to see non "prettyboy" actors being truly heroic.

Joe Meils

The Mist struck me as a movie built on references: there's stuff in this film that reminds you of things we've seen from Katrina (the folks trapped in the Superdome, who were reported to have become violent, the rumors about them even got to the point of insanity, saying they'd turned canibalistic, LOL) to 9/11 (the mist itself rolling into town reminded me of the dust cloud from the towers swamping the canyons on NYC). There are also tons of references to other "giant bug" movies, "The Birds," "Night of the Living Dead" and especially "The Crawling Eye" Hell, there's even a good bit of Shirely Jackson's "The Lottery" in there for good measure. I'm not even going to try and list all the homages to Ray Harryhausen in this thing... I don't want to end up wasting that much bandwidth.

The things that make this movie worth shelling out your $7.50 for are twofold: one, the underlying theme of how people will turn to anything or anyone for answers, if they are freaked out enough: and two: that ending. (I didn't like the ending to be frank, but I have to admit it's stuck with me for several days now.) I have to hand it the director... many movies have come close to pulling that sort of an end, but they always ended up pulling the punch at the last second. (Take a look at "Island of Terror" with Peter Cushing and Edward Judd for a prime example.) For better or worse, at least he took the risk!

Dan Bell

I will have to disagree. This was the first movie to be an actual ordeal for me since Saving Private Ryan. I was drawn to the picture knowing that Darabont had directed The Green Mile and Shawshank. He had done spectacular jobs with shorter Stephen King stories, and avoided the pitfall of cramming a King opus into two hours or, in the case of 1408, trying to build a two hour movie out of a story that did not have enough for those two hours.

Call me a purist. I have been cheated by too many Stephen King stories turned to movies that have nothing to do with the story, or mutilated by adapters/directors who thought their vision was better than the material they begged licensing for. The Mist was spot on. It was one of my favorite King stories and the atmosphere provided by Darabont was perfect. King's story showed people actually doing all of the right things, avoiding the cliches of monster flicks. They had plans, they tried their best, and went up against creatures beyond their scope of understanding. A one-sided war of attrition. The biblical aspect was always a King staple, and while Ms. Carmody was perhaps overdone, the theme was not. When faced with such a horrifying shift in our surroundings, people generally move to two camps: those that set rational expectations to beat them (whether in an attempt to prove the 'delusionists' wrong by walking into the mist, or preparing to fight or escape with what tools they have), or surrendering to rumor/conspiracy/apocolyptic conclusion. We need only to look at 9/11 for that, much as the comparison, for me, is unrealistic.

But....the ending. Again, Call me a purist. The wringer this movie put me through, even knowing what was going to happen, snapped with the ending. I am one to enjoy a ending that is not happy, because endings rarely are happy, at least not for all involved, and people need to have the strength to endure them, but I thought the ending was a bit too much. Rather than keep the short stories ending, and it's ambiguous message of 'hope', we are treated to a punch in the throat that had me struggling to suspend disbelief, more so than when I had to (with ease) at the idea of foot-wide tentacles crushing a bagboy.

That said, The Mist was absolutely specatacular.

downseven

Warning: There are some subtle spoilers. I loved (most of) the show. Harden's overly long preach scenes had a spectacular pay-off. Better than I had hoped. There were a couple of hard-to-swallow cliches used to develop characters, but then again have you ever read The Mist? I thought the confrontations with the Mist Creatures were engaging with pragmatic results. The crowd dynamics were developed very well. The movie was absolutely awesome up to this point. The final five minutes were such a stretch and so shocking that I ended up unable to forgive it. It was horrible. I have a little boy about the same age as the character in this movie, and as a parent the conclusion is so unthinkable, especially since there was no immediate peril. Did you read that? There was No Immediate Peril! No loving father would do what the main character did. Besides that, this final group of characters were so deserving of deliverance. There were so many other characters deserving of this demise. Because of this ending, I'm warning just about everyone not to see this movie. From a story development viewpoint, this ending was so painfully pointless. I'm flabbergasted that Stephen King apparently approved of the ending that was different from his novella. Oh well.

Loukas

I think there is a a talk about the military base in the beginning. It seemed obvious to me that it would come up as the reason sooner or later.

I'm also stuck with the ending. It's very debateable.

2virtus4

Mr. Deen, I have to disagree 100% with your review. We have completely opposite perspectives towards this movie, but that is not to say either of us is correct, rather we are just different. So don't take my disagreement the wrong way. I thought this movie was incredible, suspenseful, horrific, gut-wrenching, and down right despicable. And that is what makes this film so brilliant for me. This is definitely a horror film, but for different reasons than any other horror film I have seen. What makes this film so horrific and at times even difficult to watch with is the harsh truths we see in humanity and the mixture of emotions that the film forces us to feel. Many people say this movie is cliche, but it is supposed to be. It shows what happens to people when they are faced with a life-threatening situation which is completely beyond their control; and with no end in site. The way the people in the store act is just so completely humanistic and believable although perhaps intentionally exaggerated; or accelerated to put it better. Throughout this film I was at different times filled with huge amounts of sadness, fear, pity, admiration, and finally downright hatred (towards that pathetic excuse for a human Ms. Carmody of course). Rarely do I find a film that can make me feel such a variation of emotions, especially in that quantity. And as far as the explanation goes, there is no doubt left that the army caused it, between the talks about project arrowhead in the beginning, to the scene where they kill the soldier. It was explained just well enough to leave enough mystery throughout the film (Gives you the"is Carmody right?", "was it the army?", "can they ever get out?" kind of feeling). The ending was super powerful and heartbreaking, but at the same time, although it leaves no hope for our hero, it does let us know that humanity is ok, which up until that time we really didn't know. Alright time to wrap this up. Basically I loved this movie and think it is masterful as long as it is seen with a certain perspective. If someone goes into this just to see a horror movie, it may disappoint. But if someone is aware that this is more a reflection/analysis of the human psyche, as well as an emotional roller coaster; then I think they will find it difficult not to appreciate.

gabrielle

you big baby wan wan

The Mist

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