By Wayne C. Rogers
Starring Thomas Jane, Marcia Gay Harden, Tobey Louis,
Laurie Holden and Jeffrey DeMunn
Directed by Frank Darabont
The Mist is director Frank Darabont’s shot at doing an actual horror film that’s similar to those made back during the 1950s. Just think of Them, Invasion of the Body Snatchers, It Came From Beneath the Sea, and you’ll have an idea of what he was trying to do with Stephen King’s most famous novella. It should also be noted that the movie is in both color and black and white on the Two-Disc Collector’s Edition. Simply take your pick of which version you want to watch. Let it be known up front that if you decide to watch this movie hoping to see a Frank Darabont film (The Green Mile and The Shawshank Redemption), you’re likely to be disappointed with the product. While The Mist is an entertaining, well-made movie for its genre, it’s not going to be nominated for any Academy Awards, other than probably Special Effects.
For those of you who haven’t read the novella or seen the movie, the story deals with a large group of people who find themselves trapped inside a local grocery store when a heavy mist drifts in from the surrounding woodlands, enveloping the entire Maine town and bringing with it an array of dangerous and hungry creatures in search of some subsistence. It’s not important how the mist came to be, though the film points to a military experiment gone haywire with the creatures entering our world from another dimension.
What’s really unusual about this story isn’t so much the danger that awaiting patiently outside the grocery store, but rather the danger that’s inside the place. As the tale progresses and the fear for their lives intensifies, the trapped people quickly split into two distinct camps with one being led by a religious zealot and the other by a sensible everyday man who simply wants to get himself and his young son back to safety. The underlying current here is how swiftly the thin veneer of civilization can slip away when human beings are trapped and filled with an increasing fear for their lives with nowhere to run. The rest of the story deals with what happens inside the store, especially when some the jaw-smacking creatures breach the defenses that have been placed to keep them out. The good citizens of the store prove to be infinitely more frightening than the strange things outside in the mist.
I have to be honest and say that I was disappointed in the film when I first saw it in the theater. I certainly didn’t like the ending and the lack of hope it represented to me. When the DVD set came out, I purchased it for my film library and decided to watch the movie a second time. This proved to be a good thing because I found myself enjoying the film a lot more and could see how well made it was. I still had problems with the finale because it was like everyone you cared about gave up at the end, not wanting to be food for the creatures hidden within the mist. The ending to Stephen King’s novella was completely different, but he’s publicly stated that if he’d come up with Darabont’s ending when originally writing the story, he’d gone with it. Certainly the ending has provoked a great deal of controversy with the fans. I think it’s also strange that I liked the more realistic ending of the Director’s Cut of 1408, but didn’t enjoy it here.
Still, the movie’s very entertaining with a number of great scenes that will have you jumping in your seat. It’s fast pace with extremely good acting by Thomas Jane, Academy Award Winner Marcia Gay Harden, Toby Jones (who played Truman Capote the year before The Mist was made), Laurie Holden (The Walking Dead), the always fabulous Jeffrey DeMunn (The Green Mile, The Shawshank Redemption, Hollywoodland, and The Walking Dead), and Andre Braugher (who was in the remake of Salem’s Lot for television).
As I wrote earlier, the Two-Disc Collector’s Edition has the movie in both color and black and white formats. There’s a commentary by Frank Darabont, which is always fun to listen to, and a behind-the-scenes look at the making of the movie and the creation of many of its special effects. This is definitely a movie that all horror buffs should have in their film library. I’m certainly glad that I bought the DVD set and gave the movie another chance.
