THE MIST (2007)
Directed by Frank Darabont
Genre: Horror/Survival
THE MOVIE
For a long time, the idea of a good Stephen King adaptation was laughable. After a strong starts with Carrie. The Dead Zone, and (arguably) The Shining, Hollywood became saturated with rushed and crappy King adaptations in the 1980's. His reputation was rehabilitated with strong adaptations of some of his less overtly horrific works like Stand By Me and Misery, movies which often did not advertise their Stephen King origins. When The Shawshank Redemption was released in 1994, it was universally acclaimed and is widely considered on of the best films of its decade. Many were surprised that it was in fact based on a novella from King, as it lacks most of the traditional genre elements that audience expects from the author.
The movie was adapted and directed by Frank Darabont, who also had previously been known for his genre work, writing films like A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors, The Fly II, and The Blob. He went on to become a prolific adapter of Stephen King's work, with The Green Mile and, most recently, 2007's The Mist. The Mist gives us full-on horror Stephen King, in which a group of desperate survivors are holed up in a grocery store surrounded by a creepy mist which conceals all manner of horrible Lovecraftian monsters.
The best thing about The Mist is that it has a kind of elegant simplicity to it. It is a pure horror story about a group of people surviving an onslaught of monstrous foes and how they react as a group to survive. The movie smartly never definitively tells you where the mist and the monsters are from, you are with the survivors and only know as much as they do. Some of them speculate that some experiments at the near-by military base have gone awry and opened a gateway to "another dimension" but no one really knows and, to be honest, it really doesn't matter.
The Mist is also a commentary on human nature and we witness many of the survivors begin to break off into different factions and turn on each other. This works early in the movie as the film does a good job of giving us a broad spectrum of people and nicely underscores their differences in gender, race and social class. We see the societal bonds begin to unravel as the situation becomes more stressful but the movie really over-reaches in its second half. It goes a bit off the rails when the characters start actually openly discussing this theme. Also, the town's local religious nut, Ms. Carmody begins accumulating followers among the survivors. I don't think the movie really earns where it goes to with this character and this story arc seems to be go a bit too fast and is missing a few connections.
Darabont fans will see a lot of familiar faces in The Mist. Character actor William Sadler returns from playing a prisoner in Shawshank. You may remember Laurie Holden from her brief stint on The X-Files as recurring character Marita Covarubbias (The Unblonde) and she goes on to do Darabont's The Walking Dead. Jeffrey DeMunn has them all beat having appeared in Shawshank, The Majestic, and The Walking Dead.
Perhaps the most memorable part of the movie is its controversial and monumentally downbeat ending. I won't spoil it but will say that it aims to be very big and Dramatic. Perhaps too much so because it aims for big Tragedy, which doesn't play that well in a movie. Imagine the biggest and most tragic version of a Homer Simpson "D'oh!" and you'd be pretty close.
MONSTER/EFFECTS
There are a lot of nasty creatures in The Mist but we don't get a good look at many of them. Our first creature encounter is with a full fledged Tentacle Monster, which reaches in under a big loading dock door. We first see some fat tentacles, but we then see that they unfold into spiky appendages capable of ripping bloody chunks of flesh out of a man. In keeping with the movie's style of not giving us too much, we never actually see the rest of this creature.
We next see some large flying insects, which look like large mosquitos. The insects are pursued by some very interesting pterodactyl-like animals which have four membranous wings. Also in the mix are some very large and mean skull-faced spiders which breed inside human corpses and are able to spin webs which violently burn people's skin.
In the mist is also what appears to be a large mantis-like creature. Sadly we only see it as a hazy shadow and we never get a good look at it. The movie's best creature shows up at the end, when our small group of survivors are attempting to drive out of town, it is a truly unearthly creature like a giant dinosaur/insect hybrid with dozens of writhing tentacles. It may even be the original tentacle monster from the loading dock scene.
MOST MEMORABLE MOMENT
See above. I really like that the horror comes to a halt in this scene and the characters take a moment to experience a kind of awe in this scene. I love that there is room for a small moment of amazement. It really is a beautiful and unearthly creature.
HOME VIDEO AVAILABILITY
Widely available on DVD and Bluray. The deluxe DVD even features a black and white version of the movie.
TRAILER
Patrick Garone
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Author of City of the Gods: The Return of Quetzalcoatl
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