A Mediocre Film Based On A Fantastic Novella

Rating: 6/10 (18 June 2008)

There has been  and probably will be for some time  speculation about the end of this film and how it strayed from Stephen King's novella by the same name: The Mist. There's good and bad in equal measure, depending upon your stance on Hollywood Horror versus the literary kind. But let's back-up and look at the beginning before we rush to the end...
Equal parts supernatural thriller and science fiction yarn, the novella (published in 1985 in a short story collection entitled Skeleton Crew) was, well, phenomenal. It is the type of story most horror fans associate Stephen King with. Compartmentalized. Freakishly different. Plays on morality. Just flat-out good writing. King did well back in the 70s and 80s, but he has floundered as a writer in recent years with his horribly bad From A Buick 8 and the equally putrid Dreamcatcher (which was made into a very unfortunate film starring Morgan Freeman). What exactly happened to Mr. King, I'm not sure. He hadn't had his brush with death (yet) and his earlier work sent the proverbial chills up my spine (most notably the excellent The Shining and It). Regardless of past or more present works, Mr. King did get lucky with THE SHAWSHANK REDEMPTION in that he got Frank Darabont to write the screenplay and direct. The Shawshank Redemption has been labeled one of the top 100 films of all times by nearly every film critic in the world, and it is one of my top ten favorites. The transfer from book to film went exceptionally well, and this was in no small part thanks to Darabont's work. Darabont did similarly nice work on THE GREEN MILE, but it didn't quite reach the heights that Shawshank did. But when I saw that Darbont was attached to this film, I leapt at the chance to watch it.
Needless to say (because of my cool acceptance rating), I found The Mist to be entertaining but sadly lacking in several areas. But let's start with the good...
The creature effects. The combined work using CGI and stop animation was excellent. KNB EFX Group as the Special Effects crew and CafeFX doing the Visual Effects showed us some eerily nice work. The ominous cloud of mist was perfect enough to shroud any early identification of the creatures within it and the actors reacted to the mist just as you would expect.
Marcia Gay Harden (INTO THE WILD) stars as Mrs. Carmody, the bible-thumping, old-testament wielding, blood-seeking, Christian hypocrite that we all enjoyed in the novella. I hated her in the novella and I hated her here, meaning that Gay Harden pulled off a very good performance.
Any further positives however (save one), get blurred by the ridiculous nature of the scripted characters. Too many times we get the 'shock' effect simply for shock effect, rather than sticking with the compartmentalization of the situation (i.e., people of differing backgrounds at each others' throats in a supermarket during a crisis situation). Characters act as if they are surprised to see death and destruction after it has already been shown to them just a few hours before. People leap for weapons when a creature is nearby ready to skewer them. Main actor Thomas Jane who plays David Drayton could have been played by just about anyone, meaning that I didn't find his portrayal of this character memorable (whereas Gay Harden nailed her role) And the list goes on...
Getting back to the ending  and my final positive note  I have to say that it was hampered somewhat by my enjoyment of the written word versus this visual medium. In the novella, Mr. King leaves the ending fairly ambiguous. Which I liked. I liked a lot. And here, in the film, that gets changed to a much more somber ending. Although I liked the fact that Darabont didn't sugarcoat the final act, I do think he could have kept King's original ending and added a few more fans to his legions. But let's make it perfectly clear that this ending is absolutely in-line with the true horror genre, which is why it got a semi-positive rating from me.