Unlike most movies you’ll see me review for this site, I really had no intention of seeing The Mist. In fact, the only reason I did end up seeing it was that I was presented with the choice of either going to see The Ruins in theaters or watching The Mist on DVD at a friend’s house. After doing a little bit of research online and discovering that The Ruins is essentially the latest in Hollywood’s recent string of “torture porn” nudity and gore fests, I decided that The Mist had to be the lesser of two evils. It turned out that not only was it the lesser of two evils, but I ended up genuinely enjoying it.
The Mist is the newest Stephen King adaptation, and definitely one of my favorites. It focuses on a group of people who become trapped in a supermarket when a mysterious mist descends from the mountains and envelopes their small New England town. Their initial fear that it is the result of a chemical explosion at the nearby military base is quickly brought into question when a man comes bursting into the store claiming that there is something in the mist and that it captured his friend as they were trying to flee. Tensions first begin to rise when a portion of the group, considering themselves to be pragmatists, decide that the idea that there are giant creatures in the mist is ludicrous and that the best thing to do is go out and seek help. Matters are further complicated when the town’s resident religious fanatic, Mrs. Carmody, begins asserting that what is happening must certainly be the beginning of what is described in “Revelations” and that God is vengefully bringing “the end of days.” Although most of the crowd originally dismisses her rants as absurd, the events that unfold gradually begin to make some of her claims seem increasingly reasonable, which slowly divides the group into two distinctly oppositional camps. This is about as far as I can go into the plot synopsis without ruining major chunks of the film.
The Mist is, at its heart, a B-movie and thus is going to have some B-movie problems. The main one is that the creatures are really the film’s stars. They are why the movie was made and they are why people went to theaters. When the main draw of a movie is a special effect, it is typically not a recipe for critical acclaim. The film’s leading man is Thomas Jane (The Punisher), who plays a local artist who becomes the de facto leader of the non-religious sect. Jane simply doesn’t have the presence necessary to make the film more about the characters than the creatures. He does a decent job with what he’s given to work with, but in addition to his limitations as an actor, he wasn’t given an adequate script to save the dialogue from seeming like filler between the film’s horror elements. Oscar winner Marcia Gay Harden (Pollock, Mystic River), who plays Mrs. Carmody, on the other hand, really milks her role for everything it’s worth. There have been plenty of similar religious extremists in films before, but she is successfully convincing and frightening to a degree that very few others have achieved. She possesses just the right amount of “crazy” in a way that reminds me of Judi Dench’s excellent performance in 2006’s Notes on a Scandal.
Where The Mist does succeed, however, is generating plenty of suspense. I was on the edge of my proverbial seat for most of the film, never being able to guess exactly what was coming next. This lack of predictability may not seem like a major achievement, but with as many terrible, clichéd horror movies as have been released in the post-Scream era it is really something to be proud of. The movie’s stars, the creatures, were handled effectively as well. We see plenty of them, but I never felt like I was being beaten over the head with them to the point that they were no longer frightening. Part of the reason for this success is that there was enough diversity in the type and size of the creatures that each encounter with a new one felt fresh. The most surprising achievements of The Mist, though, are the thought provoking examinations of human nature and morality under extreme conditions. You may be a pragmatist or an atheist, but what is the threshold for what would have to happen for you to potentially question those beliefs? Once that threshold is crossed, what would you be willing to do in an effort to save your soul? The final question the film poses, in a scene somewhat reminiscent of old Twilight Zone episodes, is even more difficult to answer. I won’t spoil it for you, but I will tell you that after watching the final scene I spent the next several minutes silently staring blankly at the screen as the credits rolled past. To give you some perspective, that is an effect that no movie has had on me since the first time I watched Requiem for a Dream.
Overall, while The Mist isn’t terrifying, and is certainly less graphic than a lot of the horror movies being released these days, it’s still not something that I would encourage my mom, or anyone else that is particularly faint of heart, to rent. Still, The Mist is something that I believe the vast majority of people will enjoy. So, if you’re having a movie night with some friends or your significant other and are considering choosing horror movie, do yourself a favor and rent this instead of whichever Hostel / Saw clone is new to Blockbuster that week.
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