Taut With Suspense And Very Frightening At Times

Rating: 9/10 (8 January 2009)

From the opening scenes, "The Mist" grabs you and pulls you into a mystery, and the pacing of the story is brilliant, as the mystery is gradually, bit by bit, revealed and explained in a way that ensures that the viewer never loses interest. Throughout, this movie is taut with suspense, and unlike many so-called "horror" movies, this one is even pretty frightening at times and it all leads up to a conclusion that is both absolutely shocking and horribly sad, because in the end you know that David (Thomas Jane) did the only thing that he possibly could have done in the circumstances (and it was actually an incredibly noble and heroic act) only to find out that it was absolutely unnecessary, leaving you to wonder how in the world this guy is ever going to be able to survive what has happened.
It isn't necessary to speak at length about the plot here, except to say that this is a pretty fascinating study of how a relatively small group of people react to being forced to confront a horrific situation from which there seems to be no escape. What lengths will they go to? What depths will they fall to? All the characters are interesting to watch. My only real criticism of this movie might be the character of Mrs. Carmody. The performance from Marcia Gay Harden was very good, but it seemed to me to be something characteristic of a handful of Stephen King stories - the addition of unnecessary content that sometimes distracts a bit from the horror of what's happening. I could see value in adding a character who would rally an increasingly uncontrollable mob around them. Why the character had to be a fundamentalist religious nut was beyond me, and she did start to grate on me after a while. Aside from that one point, though, I thought this was an excellent movie, the best horror movie I've seen in a very long time. 9/10