The Mist (2007) July 4, 2008
Posted by gproject in : Cinema, Recently Viewed , trackbackDirected by: Frank Darabont
It shouldn’t be a crime to acknowledge that you do one thing well - especially when you do it as well as Frank Darabont, who has built his directorial career around adapting Stephen King’s stories into arguably the best iterations of the author’s work. If you don’t know his name, you’ll probably know his films: The Green Mile is a popular choice, but nothing holds a candle to the modern classic charm of The Shawshank Redemption - a movie that actually lives up to its overbearing reputation. After stepping away from King to make The Majestic, Darabont returns to the well for his most traditional horror to date, finally getting a delayed release in the UK this July.
The plot involves a small town that becomes enraptured by a thick, unexplained mist the morning after a ferocious storm. For the trapped patrons of a local grocery store, including David Drayton and his son Billy, the mild inconvenience turns to threat when a man rushes into the store with stories of “something in the mist!”. While a supernatural presence appears unlikely at first, it isn’t long before they must confront the fact that there are bigger forces at work. For the opinionated Mrs Carmody, a devout Christian, it can only be God who is behind the mystery. As tensions mount within the store, David and his son fight to survive against both the fantastical creatures, as well as their panic-stricken fellow humans.
Despite making one of the most popular and well-loved films of the last two decades, it’s a shocking indictment of the Hollywood system that Darabont still can’t command a major budget for his films. Or maybe he prefers working small. Either way, after The Majestic lost money on its $72 million budget, this time Darabont is left stranded with a paltry $18 million to spend. Luckily, he’s the kind of director who can make a little stretch a long way, and even on a small budget he manages to squeeze out a palpable atmosphere.
There’s only one area where the lack of budget really shows and that’s in the CG effects which sometimes feel a little unblended with their surroundings. It’s a typical complaint and, in my opinion, one that actually loses all weight when you consider the money they had to spend against the effectiveness of a majority of what appears on screen. I actually thought that aside from a few select sequences, the effects did their job perfectly well - impressively well even, given the constraints.
Anyway, like many of the best horror fantasies, it’s not about what you do see, but more about what you don’t see, and this is where The Mist really shines. It’s not just the traditional scenes of creeping around in the dark where the incredible tension rears its head; the indoors confrontations also manage to evoke a strong air of anxiety as the occupants turn increasingly hostile. 
A fantastic sequence of events that leads up to the final confrontation inside the store is marred only slightly by having been pre-empted in conversation back at the beginning. It’s a shame that the natural evolution of things wasn’t allowed to play out in its own time, but fortunately this doesn’t ruin the final effect one iota.
Performances are excellent from a rather unlikely cast. Thomas Jane takes hold of the lead role effectively and is surrounded by equally interesting character actors like William Sadler, Andre Braugher and Laurie Holden. A sharp-shooting role for Tobey Jones makes for one of the film’s best creations and he gives a strong performance, but at the end of it all there’s only one person you’ll come away remembering: Marcia Gay Harden playing the God-fearing Mrs. Carmody. She begins innocently enough but you’ll end up wanting to tear through the screen to shut her up - evidence of the strength behind her acting ability.
As a typical genre flick it’s so far, so good - and then there’s the ending. A decent conclusion is easily the hardest thing to pull off in the supernatural horror / thriller world, since they naturally build up such impossible, incomprehensible situations that there’s almost 
no way to satisfy the audience in an even half-credible manner. Here, Darabont has gone for a brave denouncement, and it will no doubt split audiences on its appropriateness. Personally, I admired its non-conformity, although some will find the depths of human despair just slightly too comical. A jet black joke on an otherwise sombre tale.
For straight-up scares, this is not the film that will keep you awake at nights - it’s actually much better than that. Darabont displays an acute understanding of how to bring tense human conflict into a story with debatable fantasy origins, and with it delivers a film that had me gripped, sometimes literally at the chair arms, for its full 126 minutes. There’s no doubting his ability to adapt and direct King’s work, and even, in the case of the ending, to inject new controversy. The film’s bottom-line concept holds much truth: There’s something in The Mist - pure talent.
The Mist is on UK general release from today.
Comments»
An excellent film but how hard is it to find a cinema showing it? Compared to finding a cinema showing dross like Hancock?
Well, I guess it stands to reason. Hancock is a $150 million summer popcorn movie and this is an out-of-season holdover from last year.
It does seem to be on a narrower release than I originally thought, but a quick search over at http://www.easycinema.com still provides a decent selection of places where you can catch it. Go early though, the ruthless competition for screens at this time of year means it might not be around for long.
Narrow hardly describes it. Saw this was on at Cineworld Shaftesbury Avenue. One screening a day at 10:20pm. By the time it finishes my last train home has already gone !
Darabont was probably the perfect director for this movie (I didn’t think so when he was first announced). The slow burn of the plot really cranks up the tension, and it’s well performed throughout - I never thought a great deal of Thomas Jane beforehand, but he’s very good. As you say, Marcia Gay Harden is excellent - I haven’t seen her in many things, but enjoyed her turn in Miller’s Crossing previously.
*SPOILERS FOLLOW*
As for the climax, how bleak was that? And well done to Darabont for not choosing the open ending of the novella.
*SPOILERS END*
Recommended, and a great review, gproject.
Thanks Mike! I’m just excited that people enjoyed the movie because it has the propensity to get lost in the fray - especially at this time of year (and under such a restricted release, as Shaun points out). The reviews I’ve seen today in newspapers and such have been decidedly average, good-not-great affairs, which isn’t going to help. This will probably end up as a DVD discovery for many.
Shaun: I did a postcode search around the Cineworld Shaftesbury Avenue and you’re right, the showing times in that area are scant at best. A central Manchester postcode (M3 3RN) was my frame of reference, and it returns a significantly wider range of venue options - although the more I look the more I realise that many follow suit by only having single, post-watershed screenings.
‘This will probably end up as a DVD discovery for many.’
Kinda like The Shawshank Redemption, huh? I remember going to the cinema to see it, based purely on my love for Stephen King at the time, but it was a half-empty theatre and the film only really found its feet once it arrived on VHS.