Pretty good, as far as Stephen King adaptations go

Rating: 6/10 (4 June 2008)

Let's be honest, Stephen King stories have not had very good luck when it comes to big screen adaptations. For every "The Shining", there have been 10 terrible movies. I was pretty leery about seeing "The Mist". I had enjoyed the novella and I wanted to see something that would do it justice. This film does a pretty good job, although I'm not sure it deserves its current lofty rating here on IMDb.
The plot is rather simple. A mixed group of survivors are trapped in a supermarket as a mysterious, deadly mist suddenly rolls in. No one is really sure where it came from, although theories abound. Some think it's the end of the world, Biblical style. Others think it's an industrial accident. Still others are convinced this has something to do with the research being done at a nearby military base. Very quickly the survivors learn there are weird monstrosities lurking in the mist. Creepy, prehistoric predatory creatures. They also quickly learn that any trip into the mist usually results in a gruesome death within minutes. There is no communication with the outside world, so the survivors are left to speculate how far the mist has spread and if any one else has survived.
Over time tensions begin to get the better of the survivors and civility breaks down. Some turn to a religious zealot for answers, others look to our hero, David Drayton (played by Thomas Jane), others simply commit suicide. At this point, the movie becomes more of a disaster movie with some movie-monster special effects thrown in. It's a study of how quickly society can break down when the normal routine and rules are removed. The movie also raises interesting questions about making decisive, life-changing decisions when it's hard to have a clue what the right answer might be. Do you stay in the supermarket, with an increasingly violent group of people, and hope help is on the way? Or do you try to formulate an escape plan and risk the mist, where no one has survived for more than a few hundred feet?
The psychological aspect of the mist is what's truly scary and isn't explored nearly enough. The actual monsters in the mist aren't all that frightening. Giant spiders, giant lobsters, giant insects, pterodactyl-like flying creatures... They all seem like rejects from a bad science fiction B-movie. The "military research gone wrong" angle also fits nicely with B-movie tradition and seems a little tired and ridiculous. The movie is far more enjoyable as a disaster movie, rather than a horror movie.
The end of the movie is surprisingly downbeat and nihilistic. What if our hero, who seemed so confident and in control all along, was just guessing like everyone else? What if he made some disastrously bad decisions, through no fault of his own? That's the end of this film. It seems the cowardly people, who were afraid to take action, are the ones who probably survived. All along we are so focused on the character flaws of the supporting characters, we fail to see that perhaps the hero might be just as flawed.