Not too darned bad ...

Rating: 6/10 (19 April 2008)

Adaptations of books are almost never up to the same quality as the source material, which is why this movie pleasantly surprised me.
Horror or shock movies seem to work best before the big *reveal*. Once the creature, or alien or whatever is shown on screen, there is an unavoidable disappointment, because what the human imagination creates is almost always more terrifying that what appears on screen. Jaws being a prime example. Scary as heck when all you see is someone being pulled under water; not so scary when you're watching a mechanical shark munch on a boat.
This story, by its very nature, rarely encounters this. Mist hides rather than reveals, which gives the movie makers ample opportunities for things to jump out and grab someone, just to vanish again. It works best when sticking to this formula.
There is also an interesting psychological component to the story, taken straight from the novella. Everyone is under intense strain and everyone reacts to it in different ways, with most people grasping what little control they still have. Marcia Gay Harden portrays a bible thumping lunatic (one of Stephen King's favorite caricatures) who convinces a number of others that this is the end of days and that they need to make right with God. Another group is positive that there are no creatures in the mist and that the others are scaring themselves into delusion. This exploration helps move the movie beyond the standard kill/die/survive themes of most modern horror.
The movie is not perfect. The momentum does flag a bit in the middle and the when the makers do show the monsters, they reek of CGI. And then the much talked about ending. I should mention that I was very fond of the non-ending that King penned, so I may be a bit biased, but the movie seemed to try too hard for a "you'll never see this coming!" Unfortunately I did.