Review: The Mist (2007)

[tom elce]

The Mist (2007)
3.5 out of 5 stars
Reviewed by Tom Elce
Directed by Frank Darabont
Cast: Thomas Jane, Marcia Gay Harden, Toby Jones, Laurie Holden,
Frances Sternhagen, Andre Braugher, William Sadler, Nathan Gamle,
Alexa Davalos
Rated: R (MPAA), 15 (BBFC)

"1408," the last filmic Stephen King adaptation before this, is a
tricky act to follow. A haunting, powerful and unsettling ghost story
that had the excellent John Cusack giving it his all in the leading
role, the film was that all-too-rare triumph of a King adaptation. In
following it, the next one has to step it up. Frank Darabont, then, is
probably the director you'd most like to see helm said picture, since
he did make both "The Shawshank Redemption" and "The Green Mile," two
of the greatest King films to date. For "The Mist," he imagines for
the first time one of King's horror stories.

What Darabont, in his first feature-length outing since the divisive
"The Majestic," has crafted is a dark horror movie just as much about
monsters in the titular mist as it is about the people hiding from
them, if not less so. For Stephen King's works are always about people
who happen to be caught up in something definitive, something huge.
Darabont never loses sight of this, combining his steadily unnerving
story elements and appropriate sporadic gore with a human story
questioning society's relationship with each other and the role of
religious faith, too.

Pulled from the same-titled novella of the same name from King's
"Skeleton Crew" collection, "The Mist" tells of a community of people
- primarily, movie poster artist Dave (Thomas Jane) and his son
(Nathan Gamble) - confined to a grocery store when a mysterious mist
descends over their sleepy Maine town in following a recent storm. Far
from being the type of mist one is generally accustomed to
experiencing, this one has something strange about it. Whenever
someone leaves the store in search of help (or loved ones) their
screams can be heard moments later. Thus, fear suffocates these people
to remain locked indoors. They are, however, far from safe, given the
continually threatening Mrs. Carmody (Marcia Gay Harden), whose
sermonizing on what she chooses to call "the end of days" turns deadly
when she, and her hastily thrown-together followers, begin demanding
sacrifices to appease God.

An examination of the monstrous both in the creatures lurking in the
dense mist and inside the Bible-preaching Carmody, Darabont's film
sets up two frightening central aspects for viewers to contemplate.
Tentacles pull a bagboy underneath a door and Mrs. Carmody tries to
pull others into acting out her ideas, the panic inspired by the
former directly influencing the latter, which is far more a statement
about how far people will go when they're confused and scared than it
is a critique of religion. "The Mist" is a rumination on painfully
evident mortality that hits notes both horrifying and frightening.

Thomas Jane played the bland sort-of hero in the underrated if
imperfect "Dreamcatcher" and now plays a similarly unmajestical
smalltown guy forced to face something he could never have imagined.
In "Dreamcatcher" his character - and his friends, too - was faced
with an apparent alien invasion that tore apart his world, while "The
Mist" presents something not too dissimilar. The mist itself does
derive from the mountaintops nearby a military base rumoured to be
carrying out UFO-related experiments, which fittingly emphasizes that
what the characters face is something truly out-of-this-world. Jane
ticks the boxes as Dave, whose attempts to keep his son (himself
played well by the young Nathan Gamble) safe are his driving force
throughout.

The example of monstrous humanity is Mrs. Carmody, played to great
effect by Marcia Gay Harden, whose occasionally histrionic level of
acting is fortunately put to best use as the seemingly psychotic
woman. Her controlling persona and reiterations of the bible's now-
ominous words work towards convincing those confined alongside her to
invest some faith in her belief that what's happening is an act of
God, the apppearance of dozens of oversized insects inevitably
accompanied by her acknowledgment of her book's plague of locusts.
That her rantings subside when confronted face-to-face with the
grotesque horror - as in a scene wherein an unfortunate walks outside
attached to a rope and is pulled back only half-there - is key to
writer-director Darabont's point. She's just as scared as everyone
else, but without much of their rationality. In her exploitation of
her fellow, confused people, she isn't too dissimilar to Isaac from
"Children of the Corn" as one might initially expect.

That "The Mist" is the weakest of Darabont's forays into King
territory is more a testament to the sublime quality of "The Green
Mile" and "The Shawshank Redemption" than a criticism of the film in
question. What he has crafted this time around is a stylish, multi-
glazed horror film that puts to shame much of either the torture
onslaught ("Hostel" and "Turistas") and also the onslaught of kid-
friendly slashers ("Prom Night). "The Mist" ranks head-and-shoulders
above the horror genre's shallow recent output, crafting multi-layered
characters and scary horror set-pieces in synch.