Solid fright movie

Rating: 7/10 (9 February 2008)

Stephen King's The Mist is so much more than just an action-horror story. Trapped in a supermarket, surrounded by flying and slithering horrors of unknown origin, a community of people who should be working together for mutual survival instead splits into dangerous, internecine factions. Strong personalities assert themselves to achieve dominance whether they are right or not. Flat Earth denialists are willing to risk everything to prove to the group that nothing is actually wrong, when clearly something VERY wrong is going on. A local religious nutcase becomes a charismatic tyrant, exploiting fear to spread her twisted version of the Old Testament. Logic and social accountability go out the window to be replaced by selfishness and power-grabbing. It is human politics and religion in miniature, as well as a glimpse at how close supposedly civilized humanity is to descending into primitivism and savagery that makes Lord of the Flies look like a Victorian tea party. It is to Frank Darabont's credit that his adaptation left alone much of the structure of King's novel, while giving the exercise a nice other-worldly cinematic look. The film is shot in bled-out colors, giving the world within the Mist and the characters themselves a cheerless, hopeless appearance. The monsters themselves are suitably strange and ugly and lethal, and the ensemble cast, which ranges from highly effective (Marcia Gay Harden) to barely adequate (Thomas Jane), manages to successfully impart the appropriate air of menace and hopelessness the situation requires. It should be noted that, while the film follows the progression of the novel reasonably faithfully for most of its length, the revised ending may leave fans of the book irritated. The overall viewing experience is worthwhile, but I would recommend that fans of the book leave right when the novel itself ends. The tacked-on ending will have you frustrated.