The Mist (2007) Review

The Mist (2007) Review

Frank Darabont wrote and directed two of the greatest (if not the two greatest) movies based on the works of Stephen King: The Shawshank Redemption and The Green Mile, both Academy Award-nominated period piece prison dramas with incredible characters and masterful storytelling. So with that in mind, The Mist, based on a novella by King, written and directed by Darabont, should be in the same league as those movies, right? 

The Mist is about a dad, played by Thomas Jane, who goes to a convenience store with his son and neighbour after a storm hits their home, and a strange mist moves in over the town, bringing with it deadly creatures that force them and a bunch of other people to board up in the store until help arrives (if it ever will) in a very Dawn of the Dead-type of survival situation. 

Unlike those aforementioned adaptations by Frank Darabont, The Mist is a straight-up monster movie, so you can’t really compare it on the same level as those other movies. Most critics and King fans thought it was another hit for him. Unfortunately, I didn’t think it was all that special, save for a couple aspects. 

Darabont is well-known for working with his friends on his projects, so it’s no surprise that a large chunk of the casts from The Shawshank Redemption and the first season of AMC’s The Walking Dead are present. There’s Melissa McBride (Carol in Walking Dead), Jeffrey DeMunn (Dale in Walking Dead and the attorney in Shawshank) and Laurie Holden (Andrea in Walking Dead and Adele in The Majestic, another movie directed by Darabont), just to name a few. 

Thomas Jane is fine as the main character, but for me the standouts were Andre Braugher as the neighbour (who’s best known right now for playing Captain Holt on FOX’s Brooklyn Nine-Nine) and Toby Jones as one of the store employees (best known for playing Zola in the Marvel Cinematic Universe). 

There are a lot of characters, some more interesting than others, but one who stands out in the worst way is the religious nut who slowly converts the non-believers in the store to think the monsters outside are the work of God. She’s meant to be overbearing and insufferable, so in that way it works, but it’s a bit of a double-edged sword. Yes, eventually you actually feel more sympathetic for the protagonists because they hate her as much as anyone watching probably will, but she’s so annoying it becomes just too much after a point and you’re just waiting for someone or something to kill her off.

There are interesting themes that come up, including the religious stuff, but also people being pushed to their brink in an extreme situation and how they react, and how easily people can turn on each other in hostile situations. But the exploration of these themes isn’t balanced that well with the monster stuff, so it doesn’t totally work. 

There are many different-looking monsters throughout, and while some are more generic than others, they all usually end up being rendered in fake-looking cgi. There are a few moments where smaller monsters are done with animatronics, but not enough for my taste. I found it kind of strange that the monsters never really try to break into the store to get everyone, despite it having big glass windows that they aren’t even able to fully block. Maybe the monsters can’t smell or hear through glass? 

 

The first act is slow, but once the monsters start appearing more and the tension in the store mounts, it picks up, but never really gets truly awesome, until one point, which I can’t talk about without spoiling, so I’ll wrap this review up, then have a spoiler section at the end. 

The Mist is a disposable horror thriller that might have been something more, given a larger budget, but I still have great respect for Darabont and what he was able to bring to the table. I’ve read the novella it’s based on, and didn’t like it, so I will say I think it’s one of those rare cases where the movie was better than the book (Stephen King has also said he thinks it’s one of the best adaptations of his work). Also, this is just a minor point, but why do they call it “mist” and not “fog”? I’m guessing it’s because the title The Fog was already used by John Carpenter’s 1980 ghost movie. Why not The Ground Clouds? I bet that wasn’t taken. 

Now for the spoilers. It’s a spoiler just to say something big happens at the end; I can’t imagine how impactful it would be if someone watched this and didn’t know what happens (which I did, unfortunately) or that something significant happens at all. After driving around in the mist until they run out of gas, Thomas Jane and the other survivors with him decide they might as well kill themselves before the monsters get them, but they only have four bullets, so Thomas Jane shoots his son and the other three, only to discover moments later the military are here to kill the monsters and save everyone. Awkward! 

It’s one hell of an ending, and totally different from how the novella ends, but it’s sadly the most gripping and unexpected part of the whole movie. Much of the movie feels a bit generic and predictable, but this? This is just one of the darkest endings ever. It almost works perfectly too, but Thomas Jane (who I think is great, really I do) can’t quite pull it off. To be fair, I think even one of the best actors of all-time would have a hard time conveying that emotion, there’s no proper way to react to something like that. Anyway, the ending is certainly the most memorable part of the entire movie.