The Mist Review

If you aren't hung up on originality, this one works most of the time as a creepy horror film delivering some overly recognizable character types that you'll probably have enough empathy for, so that the jolts and twists of the story really work quite effectively.

Now I'm not saying for one nano-second that this highly derivative film is a new classic; its not.  It  is after all just another derivation on  Howard Hawks'  The Thing  or George Romero's  Night of the Living Dead where you trap a bunch of people inside a building and throw some nasty things at the group.  However, looking at it as a slightly over-blown b-movie, it's the best I've seen in several years and far better than John Carpenter's THE FOG  which has several similarities (no no Pirates) to this one.  Perhaps that's faint praise when it come to horror movies, but I liked it and I intend on watching it again around Halloween next year.

The setting is Maine and we quickly meet David Drayton (Thomas Jane) an artist who makes a living painting movie posters who lives a large sea-side home that once belonged to his Grandfather, with his wife and very cute son, Billy  (Nathan Gamble) .  The next door neighbor is an uptight rich lawyer Brent Norton (played by Andre Braugher) who has been involved in a nasty lawsuit of some sort involving some of the locals.

There's a very nasty electrical storm that winds up knocking over some large trees.  One crashes through the window of the house and another that was on the lawyer's property crashes down on  the boat house.  Yet another tree has wiped out Brent Norton's prized near-classic Mercedes convertible.  The power is out and everyone notice that there is a strange mist rolling across the lake.  When its time to go into town to stock up on supplies formerly feuding neighbors David and Brent seem to be getting along; nothing like a natural disaster to bond people..

What works about the set-up is how natural and charismatic the characters are portrayed by Jane, Braugher, and Gamble. Everyone seems like people who might actually live in a small town in Maine.  

We begin learning about some of the other characters of the town through some dialogue and we get a sense that something is very wrong when trucks full of military personnel drive very fast past               .

Then at the crowded store we meet a lot more of the townsfolk, including the ovelry-zealous crazy religious lady Mrs. Carmody  played by Marcia Gaye Harden.     As we expect her character and portayal are over the top-even more so  than  what Piper Laurie did as the religious nut mom of CARRIE for Brian DePalma's King adaptation.  The character types are definitely stereotypes but they aren't written or played as rigidly as we have seen in the past, so it's easy to continue believing the set-up.

There's are a group of  3 Military men who seem to plotting to go AWOL and then an MP arives on the scene and scolds them, warning them they better get to the check-point ASAP.    The pea soup fog moves in, and then another local (Jeffrey DeMunn)   arrives in a panic with a bloody face talking about how ‘something in the mist' grabbed his wife.   This isn't good.

And things soon get much worse as huge tentacles  able to tear off large patches of skin in a single swipe appear.  Only a few characters have seen the tentacles however and sure enough people like Brent the Lawyer  don't believe the tentacles exist, while our religious nut believes God has begun his vengeance on all the sinners in the world and everyone is doomed.

Creepy huge bugs appear and the huge plate glass windows of the store need re-inforecment, then something larger that eats the bugs appears and create more havoc, especially since while trying to defend themselves some of the locals have almost burned down the store in the process.   Lines are drawn amongst the people trapped in the store and a dangerous mob mentality is growing and getting worse and there's still more nasty things in the fog to contend with.

Some of this is very predictable of course, but there's some nifty ideas at work and some twists and turns that will surprise you even as they test your credibility a little bit.   If you think too much about some of it, it won't hold up, but the film's pace and progression of events are slick and fast enough you'll probably go along for the ride. There's also a couple of messages and a few speeches that lay it on a bit too thick--but that's better than it being shallow and without a message.

And then, just when it seems to be heading toward a satisfying but not particularly inventive ending, we get a twist that you don't see very much in movies anymore.  Well done.

So if you are looking for a horror movie worth seeing this holiday season, check out THE MIST.  It's one of the better genre films of the last several years.

3 ½ bumped to 4 for fans of horror films.

 The Mist    2008   Directed by Frank Darabont.