After a major thunderstorm a mysterious mist envelopes a local community with monstrous results.

Rating: 8/10 (19 July 2008)

Usually, making a movie out of a Stephen King book has not been that successful, at least in my opinion. A lot gets lost from book to screen, but this movie somehow manages to work. The premise is your typical SK storyline: Something Is Out There (sorry for stealing that title) but we do not know what it is, and when we do find out, we do not know where it came from or why. After a major storm hits a local town a strange mist appears from the mountains. An area the military (same old theme, but we have to have a scapegoat or villain somewhere, and the gov't is such an easy target) is stationed doing something secret. Our local hero heads to the grocery with his son to pick up some supplies, and we start out with a fairly large cast trapped inside the grocery store when the mist appears and one of the residents says that something grabbed his friend outside. Before long the people figure out that there is a monster outside, but are not too sure just what or how many. After a few victims and some of the mysterious creatures get inside the store, all believe now. One of the characters is a very religious woman who claims that all that is happening is exactly what happened in the Old Testament, and soon her followers grow in numbers and we then must have our first sacrifice. For most of the movie the plot follows your typical horror movie, and the audience, at least those that read the story, know what will happen. But this is where it gets good. Though the acting was mediocre, even by some outstanding actors (in other flicks), and the alien creatures are done okay, and one cannot stop the feeling that this is a cross between Evolution (with David Duchovny) and War of the Worlds (with Tom Cruise), we somehow know that this is going to be about the same as most other movies with the same basic plot. Until we get to the very end of the movie. Five people manage to make it out of the store and decide to keep on driving until they run out of gas or get out of the mist, and of course they run out of gas. Now what? They are surrounded by the mist and know what waits for them out there. Some notes on the message board say that they do not like the ending and how could a father kill his own son, but in the movie the son cries to and begs his father to not let the monsters get him. So what to do? What would any parent do? There are 5 people and 4 bullets. Do you wait for the monsters to get you or do you end it quickly and sacrifice only yourself to a horrible death? I personally liked the changed ending as it made more of an impact when our hero realizes that the 4 people he shot were killed in vain. A lot of SK stories leave the reader wondering what happened, and the different ending in the movie, IMO, actually made what was an okay movie into a much better movie.