Stephen King’s The Mist

Written by Gillman on November 24, 2007 – 12:06 am

Stephen King + Frank Darabont (typically) = SUCCESS

“The Mist” marks the third time Mr. Darabont has written and directed a Stephen King adaptation, previously scribing and helming “The Shawshank Redemption” and “The Green Mile” (he also produced “Green Mile” and “The Mist”). Both of those films were nominated for Best Picture and Best Screenplay Academy Awards. So yeah, when you go to see a Darabont adaptation of a Stephen King story your expectations can be understandably high. And while “The Mist” most likely won’t be sucking up any Oscar nominations this winter, it is another in the line of successful films from the King/Darabont pairing. I have to admit with this not being his typical type of fare (having not really directed a straight up horror flick before - though he had written a few) I kind of forgot that this was Darabont’s work when it started. What reminded me first was the great dialog. You just don’t find horror films these days with this type of top-notch writing. Witty, yet realistic interactions with well-drawn and played characters is what keeps this movie going.

The picturesque town of Castle Rock, Maine (where else?) is struck by a devastating storm and the next day David Drayton (Thomas Jane, “The Punisher”) and his wife notice a thick, unnatural looking mist start creeping toward their house through the mountains. Of course they think nothing of it, so he takes his young son, Billy, into town to stock up on supplies and leaves his wife at home. The grocery store is full of post-storm hysteria, but that is nothing compared to when the mist envelopes the store and “something” in the mist starts devouring people. The majority of the film is spent with a few dozen people trapped in the store terrified of what is, or what may be out there. We learn pretty quickly that there is something there (at least one something) and it is not a something to be trifled with. Whatever it is, it is a big bad and it ain’t shy. After the first casualty David has to balance his time between being the devoted and protective father that he is and reluctantly taking the reigns of the group of townsfolk barricaded in the grocery store. His reluctance is not something that goes unpunished, as this is truly a horror movie. It is not a film that you go watch to have a laugh (though there are quite few) and get a few jumps (quite a few of those as well). This is a movie that will leave you a little queasy. The monster attacks at first felt like an action movie (in the “Jurassic Park”vein), but they take a turn, the stakes get raised and they do get far more scary than anything JP had to offer. This is a movie that tells a truly horrific tale. It is a tale full of fear, panic, choices, faith and dire consequences. I can’t, in good conscience, recommend this movie to someone that wants a “lite horror” movie, but I do recommend it (just not to everyone).

There are several different themes at play here, from religious zealotry, to the responsibility of our military, to the banding together of a few against many, to actual Armageddon, and the psychological ideation of humans as scared animals (that when we lose our modern conveniences and the protection of the government we fall back to our basest instincts). We can become scared, accusatory, vicious animals, or we can rise to the occasion. I have to say that of all of these things, it was the religious hysteria that I found most frightening. Marcia Gay Harden (”Mystic River”, “Pollock”) was great as the town zealot. She’s a sanctimonious, smug, wicked bitch and yet, in times of fear, she is able to convince the towns people to follow her, even to the point of human sacrifice! I was more scared of what she was doing to the group than what the monsters were doing. These people are weak, they are frightened and they turn to her (simply the loudest of the bunch) to lead them. Well, most of them do. David and a handful of other survivors do what they can to keep the sanity intact and find rescue. David must do this while trying to keep his child safe and worrying about his wife at home (of course all communications are wiped out by the mist).

Another thing that sets this apart from the horror films we’ve been subjected to for years is the cast. I suspect the fact that Frank Darabont was writing and directing helped in getting this fine group performers together. Thomas Jane owned this film and hopefully has found his break-though role with this. I’ve liked him since he played Mickey Mantle in “61″ and I found this to be his best performance to date (and I was one of the people that thought he did a great job in “The Punisher”). He is everything the hero of the film should be, strong, compassionate, intelligent, and brave, but he is not perfect and makes some grave and devastating errors, for which he pays dearly. I already mentioned what Marcia Gay Harden brought to the film, but it deserves mentioning that she is such a tremendous villain (for lack of a better term) that you want to see her “get her’s” as much as you want the people to escape. Andre Braugher (”Homicide: Life on the Street”) is one of my all-time favorite television actors, and though this is not the big film role that I would love to see him in, it was great seeing him again. Even the kid (Nathan Gamble) didn’t get on my nerves. Which is saying a lot when it comes to child actors. Frances Sternhagen, as the “Spunky Old Lady” Irene, completely won the audience over and had some great moments as well.

Darabont did a beautiful job behind the camera, as usual. I do however wish they would have taken the time and effort to create some actual special effects for the creatures rather than relying so heavily on CGI, like too many film makers do these days. CGI just doens’t look real. There were a few times in here that it even looked bad. It’s especially frustrating though when some of the best suspense in the movie is accomplished with a fuzzy white screen. He’s a skilled enough director to make a blank screen scary, he doesn’t need the CGI. There are also a few typical horror movie crutches in here, most notably the “fake scares”. Luckily though, there are only a few, and they are used well. Still, the movie had some good, solid scares and delivered plenty of entertainment. The crowd I saw the movie with actually erupted into cheers and applause three times during the movie. How often does that happen these days? Overall this is a successful horror film, but I fear that it will turn a lot of people off. I have to admit, about three-quarters of the way through I thought to myself, “Self, how ever will this end?” I also have to admit, I never saw the ending coming. Never. It was shocking and it was ugly (in the purest sense of the word). I can’t imagine that the studio didn’t try to get him to change it. I can’t imagine that they didn’t try to get him to pretty it up, to wrap it up nicely for the Christmas time movie goers. I applaud Mr. Darabont for making a horror film horrific. “The Mist” joins “Seven” and “Angel Heart” on my list of “Movies With the Most Disturbing Endings Ever.” I should say, that is very high praise from me.

RATING: 8/10