Effective and gripping modern horror (SPOILERS)

Rating: Null/10 (13 July 2008)

A severe storm in the Maine area leaves a small town all getting supplies and equipment to repair their homes in case of another brace. The busy department store is thrown into confusion whenever a local man runs into it shouting about "something" in the mist that has been sitting on the lake and mountains since the storm. Suddenly the town (and the store) is engulfed in the mist and screams can be heard from those caught in it. Nobody knows for sure what is happening although strange noises can still be heard from outside. An attack on the store by a hideous creatures leaves them in no doubt that they are in peril, even if the reasons are less clear  God's wrath, mass hallucination or what. As the noises increase, the tensions rise within the crowded store with factions forming and threatening to ignite the situation.
If there is one thing that makes me approach a film with caution then "Stephen King's" being before the title is one. Fortunately the reviews were positive enough to make me go along to check this out and, with some reservations, I'm glad I did. With almost no build up to speak of, the viewers find themselves trapped in the same department store as the characters with only the fact that we know this is a genre film to give us a bit more insight into what is out there in the mist. From this point what we get is an extended and professional film version of an Outer Limits episode where the monsters hidden inside the mist are of as much interest as the monsters hidden within the humans in the store. Darabont recognises that they are both of equal importance with his script and direction and some of the more scary moments are to do with the actions inside the store rather than those outside. This allows the tension to be raised on all fronts and it makes for an urgent and engaging horror film that skips across the two hour running time as if it was nothing.
On paper the cast suggest this is a lesser film but this is not true so much as it being a lower budget affair. Jane is an effective lead and sells a lot of it  surprising to me since I've never been that impressed by him. Braugher was a bit of a disappointment to be in regards how little he does and how soon he leaves the film. Harden dominates the film with an really good performance that drives the film's subtext of criticism of religious extremism. She prevents it being hammy or aver-acted by the total realism she brings to it, you never take her less than seriously. Outside of these two it is very much an ensemble piece and pretty much everyone does just what they have to do in a cast that includes plenty of solid names such as Sadler, Holden, Owen, Jensen and others. As director Darabont does really well to keep things tense. The trivia section tells me he used the camera crew from The Shield and you can see the effect; technically I'm sure they are used to tighter schedules but the are also very good at making the camera a device to add the sense of urgency rather than just capturing images. Technically the weakness is in the effects, which is to do with the budget. However what helps this is that we never really get a good look at anything in particular and, when we do, there tends to be a lot of action to prevent us worrying about it.
The film ends on a bleak note that prevents any sort of upbeat feeling. Personally I would have liked it to have ended without the final "reveal" because I didn't think this offered as much as a bleaker, more open ending would have done (eg just Drayton walking out into the mist). This would have left us his anguish but also offered no wider hope for the world  as it is, his situation is diminished slightly in importance by the "twist" being about the bigger picture. It does still work though and it leaves The Mist as an effective, bleak, interesting and scary horror movie. Goodness only knows why it did so little business in the US because, aside from some content that comes with the genre territory, this is a really effective and gripping film where the tension and horror comes from outside and inside with both given equal importance.