Review of “The Mist”
Now here’s a really interesting question: what would you do if threatened with a horrible extinction – if you were certain that there was no escape from death? Would you turn to religion, science or drugs? This problem is the dark heart of Frank Darabont’s screen adaptation of the Stephen King novella The Mist. It’s an eerie mix of B-horror, social commentary and perhaps something even more profound, bordering on the emotionally spiritual. When I left the cinema I was compelled to phone my family – just to check that all was well.
Darabont has worked successfully – as writer and director - with King’s material before (most notably with The Shawshank Redemption and The Green Mile), but this is quite a different production to both those films – it’s less polished with a raw and stage-like feel at times and filmed with a rapid hand-held style and minimal music.
Set in a small town community, the film opens with a violent storm that cuts power and phone connections. A group of residents are busy in the local supermarket stocking up on supplies when a thick mist descends, bringing with it a bleeding, panicking man and his tale of “something out there”. The trapped group becomes a metaphor for America - or for humanity in general - and as the horror reveals itself in a series of terrifying and bloody events, the group splinters into those who fall under the spell of Christian fundamentalist Mrs. Carmody (Marcia Gay Harden) and the action-orientated rationalists led by a successful artist David Gibson (Thomas Jane) who is trapped with his young son Billy (Nathan Gamble).
Most of the film is shot inside the supermarket, mixing scenes of the fight against various not-so-convincing CGI creatures with scenes of the fight of rationalists against fundamentalists. When the evil is just foggy menace - all powerful and all consuming - King’s core themes of the hopelessness of the human condition and the flaws of human nature come powering through, but when we have to watch the menace in action it’s too low budget to be convincing. Whilst there are some great cameo roles (in particular the supermarket deputy manager Ollie, played by Toby Jones) the square-jawed Thomas Jane isn’t strong enough to carry the enormous demands of the leading role – particularly at the film’s emotionally difficult ending, which departs from King’s story. Still, it’s a very refreshing and thoughtful take on the horror genre.
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