They Made Lots of Mist Takes To Make This Movie

Rating: 5/10 (14 February 2010)

Does injecting what is essentially a B-level monster movie format with more refined and sublime concerns such the nature of death, the existence (or not) of God and the destructive aspect of religion elevate the B-level monster movie to something a little more significant, or degrade the high-toned philosophical musings into a mere gimmick employed to spice up a crappy monster movie?
The answer in the case of Frank Darabont's "The Mist" is a little bit of both, unfortunately.
It was an admirable attempt, in the tradition of the best episodes of "The Twilight Zone." Is the monster that creepy thing outside, or is the monster ourselves? Rod Serling was a master at writing set-ups like that, and making them believable...to the point where they still hold up to this day.
Like I said, I appreciate the attempt to inject that kind of refinement into a silly monster movie. However, in this case, it just doesn't work. Why not? I guess because that aspect was a little too heavy-handed, overwritten, and overacted. If everyone had just dialed everything back just a LITTLE bit, I would have been prepared to give this movie an 8.
As far as the ending goes, I understand that some of the other commenter were bothered by its seemingly nihilistic tone with no reason.
On this point, I must disagree. What happened at the end of the film made complete sense to me, with what I knew about the characters and where the story had gone up to that point. Too bad that movies like this can't have their endings left up the air in today's movie marketplace, and most must have a "surprise twist" ending. I breathed a sigh of relief that the big surprise twist wasn't anything STUPID, like it was all a dream or something like that.
But I still shake my head that some sort of "ironic twist" was required, and the film makers couldn't leave it open-ended, like Stephen King did in his novella.
Still in all, it was a good idea and Darabont builds everything up well, tension is thick, and the CGI monsters are well scary.
The other major reason I cannot give this film more than a 5 is that it is a total ripoff of the no-budget stinker "The Slime People" from 1962. It has the exact same set-up of people trapped in a grocery store while nasty beasties are outside, wandering around in a fog that has enveloped everything. Never mind Carpenter's "The Fog," this one is the true wellspring. Not saying that King actively grabbed his story from a creaky old black and white movie. But everyone knows that sometimes certain things remain stuck in your brain for years until they pop up again for no reason: things you didn't remember you remembered. What I am saying is that King probably grabbed most of the story from "The Slime People" on a subconscious level. It was shown on TV many times during the time King was growing up. If you don't believe me on this point, please check out the reviews of "The Slime People" and you will see how right I am.