Frank Darabont\'s return to Stephen King is the kind of horror movie that I miss. The kind that still leaves my jaw dropping despite its monotonous setting and shoddy computer effects.
At a glance, it’s easy to compare this and John Carpenter’s The Fog; however the two couldn’t be more apart. I can point out the superficial difference: Carpenter’s fog is supernatural, while Stephen King’s mist simply hides the danger that lurks beyond. But really, that’s like arguing Carl’s Jr.’s merits against Hardee’s. The thing that really splits the two is what subset of the horror genre they occupy. The Fog is an atmospheric ghost story, while The Mist is a shocking exploration of human altruism. This becomes apparent very early, when scary shit starts going down, and a lady freaks out about having to check on her kids at home. She asks the dozens of people around her for help, but no one—not even our hero Thomas Jane—would volunteer, resulting in the lady’s presumed death.
Genre enthusiast Jane plays movie poster artist David Drayton, who in a cool nod is working on a Dark Tower one-sheet. He takes his son shopping to stock up after a storm hits their home. Of course, it doesn’t take long before somebody screams bloody terror that there’s something dangerous in the mist, forcing the customers and employees to stay inside the supermarket, where almost the entire movie takes place in. What’s really in the mist? Since the movie’s marketing has done a pretty good job so far keeping it mysterious, I’ll hold back on it too. It’s much more effective to let each piece of information jump out, because going in blank places you in the shoes of the characters.
Where The Mist gets interesting is how the customers, like any budding civilization, develop cliques. They flock to groups, seeking leadership, no matter how absurd.
I remember when I first caught wind of the CBS reality show Kid Nation. I was fascinated by the idea, but turned off by the execution. The appeal, to me, was the prospect of seeing the birth of a new mini civilization and how humans, stripped from resources and hierarchy, would sculpt their society. The Mist fulfills what I had wished from Kid Nation. Instead of children, we have another form of infancy: trapped men and women who are terrified of an outside force, and have no knowledge of what to do.
“You take away their 9-1-1, and you’ll see what we really are as a species,” says supermarket employee Ollie (Toby Jones), providing the film’s cynical voice.
What we’re really like? The result is so ugly that whatever monstrosity lurks in the mist is nothing compared to what the survivors end up doing to each other. When that happens, it’s always more interesting for the movie, because you have horror that’s visceral and disturbing at the same time (see: Night of the Living Dead).
Mrs. Carmody (Marcia Gay Harden) is the circumstantial villain of the film; an Old Testament Bible thumper who believes that the things in the mist are the result of an angry God. Everyone thinks she\'s crazy at first, but faith, after all, is a powerful comfort; so as the situation gets worse, more and more people start to turn to God. She is portrayed as a ruthlessly horrific, almost comic book villain manner. So terrible that, when she really gets going, she sounds like a Westboro Baptist Church member. Yet Darabont is smart enough to leave it ambiguous that she might actually be right, that her religious zealotry could be the answer. Norton (Andre Braugher) is David’s cranky neighbor, who voices the secular POV so strongly that he refuses to see the truth and pays for it.
That… is the true horror in this horror flick. It reveals how shortsighted we all are, always following the answer that is easier to accept rather than right. The mist exists, and it’s everywhere.
Darabont hired the camera crew of The Shield to adopt the show’s grittiness, and KNB to do fantastical effects. The result is an interesting-though-questionable blend of dramatic realism and B-movie gonzo, which kinda fits the film’s whole thematic mash-up. There are several gory action sequences a la The Thing, but the climax of The Mist is like a scene straight out of the documentary Hell House.
All this, added with the shockingly bleak and emotionally twisted Twilight Zone ending, makes for a very unsettling film, and marks it as one of the best horror films in a long time.
"The Mist" opens November 21, 2007 and is rated . Horror. Directed by Frank Darabont. Written by Frank Darabont, Stephen King (story). Starring Andre Braugher, Frances Sternhagen, Jeffrey DeMunn, Laurie Holden, Marcia Gay Harden, Thomas Jane, Toby Jones, William Sadler.
