A refreshingly suspenseful horror film

Rating: 9/10 (5 February 2010)

The Mist is a relatively low-budget horror film that is fast-paced, absorbing, and full of suspense. Based on Stephen King's novella of the same title, this movie tells the tale of what happens when terrifying beasts from another dimension are unleashed (by a disastrous military experiment) upon Stephen King's familiar "small town America".
The story is set almost entirely in a supermarket, besieged by alien terrors lurking in an all-enveloping mist. We follow the plight of artist David Drayton (portrayed by Thomas Lane) and a group of other locals, stranded and struggling to survive both the monsters outside and the growing mass-insanity within the store. The latter is whipped up by a disturbed religious fanatic, Mrs. Carmody (Marcia Gay Harden), who uses the climate of fear to offer easy solutions and scapegoats, generating ever more hysteria and spiritual fervour in the credulous and the terrified.
With solid performances from the ensemble cast, a good balance of situational suspense and action, and a shock-ending, this is a refreshing change from the dreary torture-porn that passes for the horror-film genre lately. Well worth a look.