Uneven, but genuinely affecting

Rating: 8/10 (12 May 2008)

Having enjoyed the original Stephen King "novella" (more like a short story) as a child, I looked forward to seeing this movie, despite my lack of enthusiasm for movie monsters (especially those generated by computer software) and horror in general (haven't seen a decent scary movie in twenty years.)
After a fairly effective setup, the appearance of the first monster (or part of it) was quite disappointing. The cartoonish CGI did not mesh well with the realistic bloodletting. The story required menacing monsters to create a sense of dread and to give the characters believable motivation for their aberrant (and often abhorrent) actions.
Then the one-dimensional characters (basically unchanged from the short story) started up with the talky pathos (also straight from the outdated source material) and I was ready to turn it off.
Things improved drastically on the appearance of the next round of monsters. Thrilling action sequences and genuinely scary jolts ensued. The on-the-cheap CGI improved with each new species of creature. The smaller ones that are seen close up are truly menacing and the larger ones that appear shrouded in mist are certainly dread-inducing.
Interspersed with the monster attacks were shrill arguments between the ensemble of characters and an all-too-fast build-up to a Lord of the Flies style splintering of the survivors into two distinct camps.
At two hours, some have said that the movie is over-long. I think the opposite is true as the inevitable polarization and breakdown of the mini-society happens unbelievably quickly. Nevertheless, I was glad to see that part come to a climax.
Despite the fact that I knew what they would find, when the protagonists' camp debarked from the grocery store, I was as involved as I could possibly be in a low-budget monster movie. The subsequent sequence featured masterfully disturbing imagery and perfectly suited eerie music. Thirty years of desensitization to on-screen horror went right out the window. One particular image was so shocking that I am sure I will never forget it (you'll know it when you see it.) Suffice to say that five minutes was all it took for an enjoyable B-movie thrill ride to turn into a classic. Unlike the recent crop of yawn-inducing remakes and pseudo-snuff films, this is a real horror movie. The genre isn't dead after all!
The penultimate scene with the largest of the monsters is exactly as I imagined it in the story. That really should have been the ending (and basically was in print.) The on-screen ending seemed contrived to me, and far too depressing (it is hard to believe they got it past test audiences.) It was a gutsy move by the filmmakers as they had to know it would make for a commercial failure (indeed, the movie flopped in theaters.) It took additional hubris to release such a downer of a movie at Thanksgiving.
All-in-all, though less than the sum of its parts, The Mist is quite an accomplishment, made even more amazing when you consider the outdated and somewhat trite source material.