Review: "The Mist"

Seeing as how the day outside is bleak and rainy, what better conditions to use as an excuse to see a proper flick about a mysterious fog engulfing a small Maine town, and the hungry things that lurk within it?

In “The Mist,” we have writer-director Frank Darabont’s third screen adaptation of a Stephen King story – albeit unlike his two previous efforts (“The Shawshank Redemption,” “The Green Mile”) the source material is the type that is traditional of King: a tale that is part-Saturday afternoon thriller, part-social commentary, and part-post 60s acid trip.

Herein, Thomas Jane stars as David Drayton, a married artist and father who--after a violent storm that damages his house—heads into town for supplies with his young son and neighbor, a wound-up attorney (Andre Braugher) who once filed suit against Drayton and lost. While at the town supermarket, which is running on generators due to a power loss, both the store and everything around it is laid siege by a thick white fog.

At first, the persons inside the store believe they are caught in a natural phenomena – this is, until a man makes a break for his truck and dies screaming. And trust me, he won’t be the first to do so.

As nerves in the supermarket fray, and the tension is ratcheted up, a woman described as the town nutter, Mrs. Carmady (wonderfully played by Marcia Gay Harden) begins to spout Old Testament dogma that the mist is a sign of God’s wrath on a nation that has turned against Him. And although she is as frightened as anyone in the store, unfortunately no one follows up on an early threat (made by Toby Jones, as a surprisingly heroic store manager) to tape Mrs. Carmady’s mouth shut, as her religious rhetoric grows dangerously wild.

Later, after a series of incidents that nearly burn the store down--and despite his son’s tearful pleas that he not go--Drayton finally leads a small group to a next-door pharmacy to find medicines for the injured, and encounters some eight-legged samples of what the mist has brought. The fight for survival that ensues is not terrifying—more fun, actually—but it’s a neat twist on what becomes an impeccable dark ride.

As a Stephen King movie adaptation, “The Mist” is easily the best picture since 1990’s “Misery.”

And though that film is decidedly un-supernatural, Frank Darabont’s “Mist” is perhaps best described as “H.P Lovecraft Comes To Mayberry.” It’s a great idea, too, as is the claustrophobic setting of the store used to cage King’s characters (some of whom initially don’t believe the mist is a threat) is used as an incubator, growing their fears like a virus. At one point, in fact, it is suggested that throwing a group of otherwise rational people into a small space and scaring the hell out of them is a perfect way to strip humanity into its most primitive form (e.g. the Salem Witch Trials).

In this respect, and despite its over-the-top sci-fi invasion theme, “The Mist” is the best, most genuinely tragic horror film to arrive in 2007, and far, far superior to the trendy torture porn crap (i.e. anything with the word “Saw” in the title) which Hollywood has taken to pumping out in recent months and years.

Stick that in your Thanksgiving pipe and smoke it.