The Mist :: Wessex Scene Online

The Mist

8th October 2008
Jack Harding

About this film

Title	The Mist
Director	Frank Darabont
Release Date	4 July 2008
Certificate
Genres	Drama, Horror, Sci-Fi, Thriller
Our Rating	4.0/5.0

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Oct 07 - Troy Vs 300 - The Director's Cut
May 07 - 28 Weeks Later
Nov 06 - All the King's Men
Mar 03 - The Ring
Oct 07 - Our Favourite Scary Nights In

The Mist trailer

At last- a refreshing throwback to the good old American horrors of yesteryear. The Happening, bug off…

Fish and Chips, Ant and Dec, Bread and Butter…not quite the intro’ you were expecting, right? Well I certainly hope not. But some things, I think you’d agree, are just meant to go together. Add to that list Frank Darabont and Stephen King: the touching, pleasantly out of character page turners of the latter so remarkably reworked in the timeless, superseding film classics of the former. For his third King rework, though, writer/director Darabont’s ditched the potent period prison play (see Shawshank Redemption, Green Mile), opting to grapple with the author’s forte: horror. The Mist, though, is far more permanent, profound and disconcerting than its banal B-movie title and look would suggest. Not only is it somewhat of a religious experience (keep an eye out for the iconography), but it’s also a revelation.

In retrospect, the film’s form and plotline are as simple as they come: a mysterious mist veiling a brood of outlandish beasts herds a colony of model Americans into a small-town grocery store. “There’s something in the mist!” barks a bloody-nosed dweller as he stumbles through the store doors. “Shut the doors,” he cries. “Shut the doors, my god!” And so, it begins. The archetypal movie Americans vs. a pick and mix of crazy creatures hell bent on taking office.

A cast of relative unknowns star, then, alongside a host of newcomers, non-professionals and unfamiliar faces in this able adaptation of King’s original short story. The blend of chaos and camaraderie between the characters proving crucial to the tone and impact of the film as Darabont’s handheld, moving cameras bob and weave through the well orientated cast, rack focussing from one plane of depth to another as they bicker over who (or what’s) to blame. Militants? Scientists? Politics? Nature? God? Who or whatever the culprit, survival would appear salient for our classic horror film players: the valiant leader (Tom Jane at the top of his game), the mental preacher (Marcia Gay Harden at the top of hers), the stupid teen, the klutz, the blonde, the needy kid, the plucky gran‘, the non-believer, the unsung hero. They’re all in there, and more.

All told, The Mist is stylistically nostalgic. A jittery sci-fi/horror hybrid with odd sprinkles of humour that recall the cult classics of Jack Arnold, George A. Romero and John Carpenter. Only better. Yes, better. Darabont’s delve into untried territory is an upright achievement in horror movie making. The Shining? Not quite. Darabont may be a maestro of the screen adaptation but he’s no Stan’ Kubrick (who is?). There’s no disguising The Mist’s potential as a classic of the horror genre, though. This is a writer/director who’s knack for tying an empathic rapport between character and audience pays up front both where and when it matters. Shawshank was a dream. The Mist is a nightmare. But in all the right ways: a murky, tantalizing terror-jolt with added substance. High-concept with a weighty sub-text and a damn low-budget. Darabont’s more concerned with probing the humanity of horror than the gore and the guts and the winged, slithery, tentacled fiends hurling themselves at the glass panes. As far as CGI goes, you’ve probably seen better (in fact it’s laughable on occasion) but when a film’s set-up is this well conceived, it’s all right for the special effects to take a back seat. Example? The Birds. Example? Jaws. Another? Alien. Add to this list The Mist. A film rapt on how bloody timid and fragile we - humans - are in the face of fear.

“As a species we’re fundamentally insane,” utters the unsung hero. “Put more than two of us in a room, we pick sides and start dreaming up ways to kill one another,” I wouldn’t go that far, mate. “Why do you think we invented politics and religion?”…Good point.

In spite, then, of its old chestnut line up and rather rushed and “hazy” start, from the moment the smog rolls in - swallowing the entire township in one swift gulp - The Mist just gets better and better as it creeps and crawls towards an unruly final third that’ll haunt, shock and astound, disturb and confound. And there’re plenty of leftovers for audiences to chew over. This, for a change, is a horror film with something to say whose final stance over matters will lure countless back for seconds, no question.

Frank Darabont’s melded ominous camerawork, a forbidding score, top performances, lurid tension and shock after shock into a modest American macabre with a killer ending to rival that of anything I‘ve ever seen in film. It’s a bit of a shame that the 3 time Oscar nominee’s initial desire to release the film in black and white never came to pass, but horror film fans will be hard pushed to find a more riveting two-hours of pure entertainment this winter than this: a cynical and paralyzing portrait of the humane and the inhumane that certainly isn’t pleasant, but it grips like a vice all the same. In a word? mist-ifying.