One of the best Stephen King adaptations ever made.

Rating: 8/10 (27 July 2008)

David Drayton (Thomas Jane) is a talented poster artist for major Hollywood films. Which David lives in Maine with his wife Stephanie (Kelly Collins Lintz) and their son Billy (Nathan Gamble) in the country. After surviving an major storm during the night having with no power and finding some of their property destroyed in their house & as well for their boat house. David, Billy and their neighbor Brent (Andre Braugher) decides to get food in town to the grocery store until the power gets back on. Then an mysterious big mist starts covering the whole town and one of the locals named Dan (Jeffery DeMunn) claims there's something in the mist. While the locals and a few out of towners are frighten to leave the store, if the man is right there's something in the mist waiting for them. Slowly David and his son find themselves an extraordinary odds between the locals, especially people are slowly taking side with an deeply disturbed over-religious woman named Mrs. Carmody (Oscar-Winner:Marcia Gay Harden) starts taking over the store by believing her wild claims. While the creatures in the mist are waiting for them to come out. Now David, his son and other group of people (Laurie Holden, Toby Jones and Frances Sternhagen) will do anything to get out of the store for survival.
Directed by Frank Darabont (The Green Mile, The Majestic, The Shawshank Redemption) made an fascinating, eerie, sometimes old-fashioned Horror film with strong moments of scares, excitement and dark comedy. Darabont is extremely faithful to the novella by Stephen King (1408, Silver Bullet, Stand by Me), which Darabont makes small changes to the novella and the ending as well. Jane offers his best performance in this feature, which Jane appeared in a previous King misguided adaptation "Dreamcatcher". The performance in the picture are extremely good here, especially the scene-stealing performances by Harden and Jones. The creatures effects created by Oscar-Winner:Howard Berger (Hostel Part 1 & 2, The Chronciles of Narnia:The Lion-the Witch and the Wardrobe, John Carpenter's Vampires) and Gregory Nicotero (The Hills Have Eyes Part 1 & 2, Stephen King's Desperation, George A. Romero's Land of the Dead) are giving terrific F/X creature work. Which it's one of the highlights of this movie.
The two-disc set of "The Mist" is great. First DVD is the original theatrical version, which DVD has an sharp anamorphic Widescreen (1.85:1) transfer and an strong Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround Sound. Disc one includes an running commentary track by the filmmaker, deleted scenes with optional commentary, an featurette about the art of movie posters and webisodes. Second disc has the terrific looking Black & White feature of the movie with introduction by the filmmaker. I think "The Mist" looks ever better and creepier in Black & White. Disc two also includes an documentary and three featurettes. "The Mist" did so-so business at the box office, when it was first released in the winter of 2007. Some of the top film critics felt "The Mist" was something special while others didn't. But die-hard fans of Stephen King's books or films truly loved this movie best. But the feature certainly does have an second life on DVD. Since Darabont previously directed an Stephen King adaptation named "The Shawshank Redemption" became an instead classic once it hit Video and Television back in 1995. There was a few strong horror movies that came out in 2007 but "The Mist" was certainly one of the best horror film of 2007 with an heartbreaking bleak conclusion. There's an great use of "The Host of Seraphin" song by Dead Can Dance. Don't miss it. Darabont also wrote the screenplay and he's one of the producers as well. (****/*****).