Horror for grown-ups: monsters + Lord of the Flies + On the Beach + Alien +, yeah, The Fog

Rating: 9/10 (11 March 2008)

In a nutshell: One of the best horror flicks I have seen in a long time.
Not knowing the book, and being generally only medium-impressed with Mr King's oeuvre, I started watching this without great expectations. A Fog rip-off with monsters is what I thought. Which is, at some level, what this is---a mist moves into town, brings a bunch of rather nasty creatures with it (very well done creatures, by the way), people get killed.
But it is so much more. For one thing, in spite of how well done and terrible the creatures were, and in spite of the body count they racked up while going about their business being movie monsters, the true horror depicted in this movie, the one that sticks with you after the credits roll, has only tangentially to do with them, and in fact those creatures are nowhere near when it happens. At its core, this movie is not really about them, they are a plot device, almost a MacGuffin---to experiment with the question: How do you isolate and scare the living daylights out of your ordinary supermarket crowd, and what happens if you do? In themselves, the Mist Creatures do, of course, provide some good (and usually gory) entertainment. But then they trigger the Lord of the Flies/On the Beach storyline, and that is where this movie rises above the slasher/gore-fest genre. For one thing, it provides opportunity for some incredible acting, most notably by Harden, Sadler, and Braugher (in that order). Harden in particular shows another facet of her ample acting talent, in a performance that could easily among her best work so far---no small praise. Sadler probably has the part that has the broadest range, and he delivers the goods. The performance of the leading man is solid, too, but his character gives Jane a lot less to work with.
The expose explaining the creatures is flimsy, quickly dealt with, and remains mostly irrelevant. That seems to be good judgment on the part of the filmmakers---focusing on the people at the expense of monster-effects makes the experience much more real, and it provides room for some plot that lesser horror movies would have invested in graphic violence and complicated exposes on the adversary. These monsters here come (SPOILER, if you want to call it that) somehow from another dimension, the military of course had to do with it, and that was that---who cares. The important things are happening in that supermarket away from giant spiders from another dimension.
No matter how well done the creatures are, it is the story of that grocery store crowd that will stick with you after the movie is over, it is that story that makes this movie a must-see.