Writing This Review....My Jaw Is Still On The Floor From The Ending.

Rating: 7/10 (19 June 2008)

After a freak and powerful storm, Drayton, his son and their neighbour ride into town to grab some supplies from the local supermarket. Upon arriving at store, it seems almost everyone in town had the same plan. A man bleeding from the nose runs into the store screaming about something in the mist that attacked him and took his friend. The mist rolls in and everyone is trapped inside, scared of leaving because of the creatures the dwell within it.
When I saw previews for The Mist, I wasn't too impressed. I thought it was going to be another run of the mill Hollywood horror film that wouldn't be scary, thrilling, gory, tense or have any characters that I could give a damn about. That was even with Darabont behind the camera. After finally seeing it, I sit here wrong on all counts. The Mist is just as thrilling and scary and tense as you want it to be, yet it falls short in many areas, mostly out of frustration on my part.
Thomas Jane isn't the best actor around. When you fight fight sharks and John Travolta how far can you really go into a character. Here he gets the chance, being a father who must take care of his scared son, act as a leader in the store and ultimately survive the horror that awaits him outside. Now he does try here, but it comes off as some twilight zone B movie acting. Which is, what I can only assume, is what Darabont wanted. His screaming in the film's conclusion is hurtful, both in terms of acting and in sorrow for the character. His son is given nothing to do but cry and be scared, which you can guess is exactly what a little kid would be in this situation.
The tension created is great, the mist rolls in and everyone is stuck inside. We don't know who or what these things are, but we know we are in for some scary things. Then we actually see them and that tension goes down a bit. In scenes in which the creatures interact with the humans, it comes off as fake and cheesy. By itself, it is quite neat, but still not truly horrifying. I felt like they missed a chance with some tension in the audio department. It starts off nice, with an alarm alerting the town of danger, but after that we get things that are few and far between. For instance, while we are in the mist, to build tension we could have heard the creatures crawling around. For people at home it would be great with surround sound. The only instance I remember them doing this was in the pharmacy.
I like that we don't know for sure where these things came from, and the sci/fi element is a neat addition. If we were full blown told what these things were and where they came from it would ruin the ambiguity of the whole film. This film stands out for me because of the way it was shot, very surreal, hand held and in the moment. If everything were nicely panned and smooth flowing, it would feel to fake.
I have two gripes, which is why the film is rated lower then what this review if praising it for. One, for those who've seen it know where I am going, is the ending. I won't spoil it for you, but you will either like it, or hate it. Which is ironic because I am on the fence with it. I applaud them for throwing a curve ball and showing us something that is so anti-Hollywood, but I felt cheated. You don't invest two plus hours into these characters and then pull off something like that. I called the ending....as a joke. I didn't expect it to be true. It's not really a twist, but what happens is shocking.
Second, the characters. I have never hated so many characters in one film. The Jesus freak stands out as one of my most hated characters in cinema history, right up there with Franklin from Texas Chainsaw Massacre. I know she was suppose to be hated, but I just couldn't stand her at all. While watching the film, I put myself in some of the characters shoes and I would have never let that woman done half the stuff she did. Also, how do 90% of the people in there fall victim to her babble? I could understand some people following her, but with her reputation and the amount of hate people had for her it was too unrealistic to see so many do her bidding. Whatever happened to people banding together to defeat evil, not turn on each other. Are we as humans so disgusting that when we are thrown into danger we kill one another. That isn't what America would have you believe, especially after the 9/11 attacks. I literally got up out of my seat and cheered at one scene, which finally shut her up.
The Mist is a hard film to like all the way through, it pulls you in so many different directions that you feel uneasy about it as a whole. It is skillfully made and 2/3 of it is horror classic. Yet it doesn't fulfill what I wanted it to, which is a shame because I really liked it.