The Mist

The Mist

2007

Action (Horror)

Rated: R

Running Time: 126 minutes

Starring: Thomas Jane, Marcia Gay Harden

Directed By: Frank Darabont

Rating: 5 out of 10

Outline

A small town is held hostage by a mysterious mist that seems to have unknown terrors stalking it.

Review

Director Frank Darabont takes on his third movie based on the works of one of the most prolific storywriters of all time Stephen King. Having directed two great films in The Shawshank Redemption and The Green Mile prior to this gave me great hopes he wouldn’t fall under the category of another crappy Stephen King movie. This film unfortunately fell somewhere in the middle of great and crappy but at least it was entertaining. When one thinks of a typical horror story it usually involves things that go bump in the night. So watching a story where things go bump in the white seemed fresh and new. The film does not really start until the unnatural fog roils into the small town trapping a medium sized group of people in a grocery store. I liked the casting in this film as I find smaller known casts often times lead to more realistic viewing in horror films. The Punisher himself actor Thomas Jane takes on the lead role of David Drayton and does a good job of leading the story in the right direction. The Mist is a really cool concept as if you have ever been surrounded by dense fog or mist it can limit your visibility to zero. Where the night time dark is chased by the light of dawn the mist sits in this movie from day to night giving the citizens no reprieve from its menacing presence. The film does a good job of providing glimpses of the terrors stalking the mist while combining that with sounds and action that cannot be seen but lead you to imagine the worst. The scenes of violence come at all the right places in this film being bloody and in your face to unseen and frantic. The myriad of creatures in the mist are very well thought up and highly detailed but very poorly constructed graphically. Some of the creatures are so poorly done in fact that it really drives the movie down on the rating scale. This coupled with the oddest of confrontations between the people trapped in the store led a film that could have worked to below average. In times of unknown crisis it is only inevitable that confrontation will occur within groups. There will be varying degrees of paranoia and differing opinions on plans on attack of solving the dilemma. In this film the confrontations ranged the gamut of complete idiocy to one of the worst characters to grace a film in recent memory Mrs. Carmody. Mrs. Carmody a religious woman is well played by Harden but so unbelievable and out of place in this film that you will find yourself hating her instead of enjoying the movie. It takes a special type of character to ruin a movie and she is one. The film also runs about 20 minutes too long but can be forgiven with a really cool ending that almost redeems the movie. Overall this film has good and bad elements and while I enjoyed the struggle for survival the lack of budget and odd character interactions were too much for my liking. I cannot give this movie my recommendation because the mist held things better left unseen.

T Factor + If you do not mind poor CGI then this could score higher on the rating scale.

T Factor – If you do need believable characters in your films then this could score lower on the rating scale.

If you liked this film reel recommendations: Phantoms, Darkness Falls