The Mist (2007)
The idea for a great horror story can manifest from the simplest life experiences. Take the character of Freddy Krueger for a perfect example. As a child, Wes Craven simply looked out his apartment window one night and saw a most petrifying image: an elderly man in a fedora walking along the sidewalk suddenly stopped and stared up straight at him. Combining that image and the undefinable fear it provoked with the name of a schoolchild bully, Craven made history in 1984 with a thrillingly imaginative supernatural spin on the burgeoning formula of the teen slasher flick, introducing one of the most enduringly terrifying monsters in the history of horror cinema along the way. Stephen King, who is without doubt the most renowned author of horror responsible for some of the most distinctive horror stories brought to life on the screen, experienced a similar epiphany that likewise originated in the blackness of nighttime.
One night, a massive thunderstorm occurred where King was living at the time. The following day, he made a trip to the local supermarket, accompanied by his son. While searching for hot dog buns, King conceived of the most random yet nightmarish scenario right out of the blue: a "big prehistoric flying reptile" flapping around in the store. By the time father and son were standing in line to pay for their purchases, King had the basis for his latest horror novella: innocent citizens trapped inside a supermarket besieged by mysterious, unnatural creatures. And so began the genesis of The Mist, adapted for the screen and brought to life therein by Frank Darabont. While far from a stranger to the mythical, surreal world of horror, having co-written sequels A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors and The Fly 2, as well as the remakes of The Blob and Frankenstein, the two movies for which the filmmaker is most recognized are prison dramas adapted from Stephen King's oeuvre: The Shawshank Redemption and The Green Mile, both of which earned Darabont Oscar nominations for Best Picture and Best Adapted Screenplay.
Determined to create a "very direct, muscular" film, in contrast to the "straighter dramas" of his previous King adaptations, Darabont elected to film The Mist as opposed to merely writing it. The result, while not quite a masterpiece -- Darabont the writer falls back on a few misguided cliches native to the horror genre en route to a heavily controversial ending perhaps a little too dark and engineered for its own good -- is nevertheless a harrowing, breathlessly terrifying sci-fi horror nightmare that combines the gruesome, creepy-crawly, jump-out-of-your-seat thrills of a classically constructed creature feature with the man-made horrors born out of fear, paranoia, and mistrust -- a most toxic cocktail of universal human emotions.
On a dark and stormy night in the small town of Bridgton, Maine (would it be any other kind of night, in any other state?), a severe thunderstorm causes a power outage and forces a family of three -- David Drayton (Thomas Jane), an artist tasked with painting movie posters, his wife, Stephanie (Kelly Collins Lintz), and their eight-year-old son, Billy (Nathan Gamble) -- to retreat to the basement of their lakeside home for the remainder of the night. Shortly after, a tree crashes through the upstairs window into David's studio, destroying his latest project. The following morning, the trio goes outback to survey the damage, which proves quite significant: a tree owned by their next-door neighbor, litigious hothead Brent Norton (Andre Braugher), a big-city lawyer from New York, has fallen and smashed their boathouse to smithereens. More peculiar than that, however, is a mysterious abundance of mist emanating from the lake. Hesitant to approach Norton, owing to an antagonistic recent past, David musters up the courage to ask for his insurance information, seeing that he too has fallen victim to the storm: his car is similarly smothered beneath a tree. In an effort to mend their relationship and co-exist peacefully as neighbors, David drives Brent, along with Billy, to their local supermarket to stock up on supplies before they sell out.
On the way, they notice a procession of military vehicles speeding down the street in the opposite direction. Once inside the store, David encounters several familiar faces: Sally (Alexa Davalos, who bears a striking resemblance to a young Amy Irving), the cashier and Billy's babysitter; Bud Brown (Robert Treveiler), the manager; Ollie Weeks (Toby Jones), the assistant manager; Amanda Dumfries (Laurie Holden), a new teacher in town who educates third graders with special needs; Irene Reppler (Frances Sternhagen), an elderly veteran teacher and Amanda's co-worker; Jim Grondin (William Sadler, rife with a tremendous pair of lungs and unashamed to use them), a mechanic and former student of Irene's; and most unpleasantly of all, Mrs. Carmody (Marcia Gay Harden), a religious fanatic known in town for being "unstable."
While waiting in line to pay for their items, David and the rest of the overcrowded supermarket are startled by the shrill squeal of an air-raid siren, followed by the horrifying sight of an elderly man named Dan Miller (Jeffrey DeMunn), bleeding from the nose as he runs into the store screaming frantically, "Something in the mist took John Lee!" Within seconds of his arrival, an all-consuming wave of mist forms all around outside and smothers the supermarket in white. As the comfort of the sun subsides, replaced by the darkness of night, a horde of winged, extraterrestrial creatures descends upon the supermarket, smashing their way in through the glass windows, determined to satiate their appetite for human flesh.
Clinging to her religion more passionately than ever, Mrs. Carmody views this invasion as punishment from God, weaponizing the fear and disorientation of her fellow shoppers to manipulate them into joining her side. With the store devolving into factions between those who believe in Carmody's increasingly unhinged sermons, allowing their fear and desperation to survive to take precedence over their common sense and humanity, and those who wish to stick together, maintain their composure, and figure out a way to combat the aliens, David and his small group of companions find themselves in the most conflicting dilemma of all: plot their escape from the supermarket and take their chances with the monsters gathering outside, or remain inside and hope against hope they're not selected for human sacrifice.
On a basic narrative level, The Mist tells a story as straightforward as a previous (and far more benevolent) King adaptation, Stand by Me: a large group of citizens are trapped inside their town's grocery store by a mysterious mist and are forced to defend themselves from the razor-sharp teeth of a gathering of aliens. Much like the aforementioned coming-of-age drama, there's a lot more going on thematically, and all you have to do is tear through the cobwebs to realize the underlying subtext. At its core, The Mist is an examination of the psychological effects of fear. How we grapple with it, how we overcome it, if we overcome it, and the damaging consequences if we don't. Fear is the most universally shared of all human emotions. Every one of us, even the seemingly strongest and most confident, is terrified of something, whether it's commitment in relationships, doing a good job in our profession, being a good parent to our children, or the more primitive things like being left alone in the dark or being confronted by a spider. In his screenplay, Darabont expertly plays on a few of those fears, with a special emphasis on the last two. As human beings, we are fundamentally flawed, and it doesn't take much to turn a good-natured, upstanding citizen into a tool for pure evil. And most terrifyingly of all, there will always be someone who knows how to exploit that fear and insecurity to further their own agenda.
In one of his few missteps as a writer, Darabont makes the mistake of underlining this pointed commentary on human society in a strongly delivered but on-the-nose dialogue. While the dialogue is engrossing when used for developing the protagonists and strategizing about how to get a handle on their impossibly challenging situation, the conversation about the effect of human fear between David, Amanda, Ollie, and Dan unnecessarily spells out Darabont's primary theme, which has already been exemplified by the behavior of Mrs. Carmody. It's as if Darabont doesn't fully trust his audience to comprehend the message he's quite conspicuously delivering, and so resorts to temporarily transforming his characters into mouthpieces to relay it verbally. On the more optimistic end of the clunky debate, Amanda believes in the fundamental benevolence of humankind and puts faith in the order of civilization. "People are basically good, decent," she asserts. "My god, David, we're a civilized society." David, on the more pessimistic end, recognizes how quickly and effortlessly a person's sense of morality can crumble once every last shred of order is lost. "Sure, as long as the machines are working and you can dial 911, but you take those things away, you throw people in the dark, you scare the shit out of them, no more rules, we'll see how primitive they get." In case David's monologue didn't fully get the point across, Dan then chimes in, "You scare people badly enough, you can get them to do anything. They'll turn to whoever promises a solution. Or whatever." On a bluntly comical note, Ollie, after being asked to back up Amanda's more naive perspective, accuses the creation of religion and politics as an insidious method to divide human beings and bring out their inherent malevolence. "As a species, we're fundamentally insane. Put more than two of us in a room, we pick sides and start dreaming up reasons to kill one another. Why do you think we invented politics and religion?"
The opening act of The Mist represents its most breathtakingly effective and heart-palpitating, utilizing a thunderstorm, with its cracks of thunder, flashes of lightning, and nighttime downpour, to evoke a classic horror ambience that sets the bleak tone for the rest of the movie to follow and intensify. The scenery of the Draytons' lakeside home, featuring a spacious backyard and expansive lake, is beautifully photographed by cinematographer Rohn Schmidt. Darabont uses this quiet, picturesque setting, and the affectionate bond between the family who inhabits it, to establish a feeling of tranquility and normalcy. David and his family appear to live a deeply privileged life owing to his profession. He gets to pursue his dream job from the quiet and comfort of his own home. He has a lake in his backyard, along with a shed to store his boat. A beautiful, loving, supportive wife, who has gifted him with the most handsome and upbeat son, with whom he shares the closest and most tender relationship. From the outset, this family has everything they could possibly want and more, making it all the more jarring and devastating when their once-simple world comes crashing down on them in a wall of mist. This is where Darabont's craftsmanship as a director really shines through, showcasing how palpable an atmosphere he can conjure up through the most minimal of ingredients.
The air of his small Maine town suddenly becomes charged with a suffocating sense of dread and menace as thick as the mist that will momentarily consume it. Military vehicles speed down the street, causing our characters to wonder why. Did their power go out too? What are they all doing in town this morning? David and Brent speak about a military experiment called "The Arrowhead Project." Could that have something to do with the weird mist that's hovering over the Draytons' lake? Thanks to the imagination of King, Darabont has scored an original and claustrophobic setting in which to isolate his characters. There's something genius in setting the majority of a horror story in a grocery store: big enough to contain multiple people, allowing space for many colorful personalities to emerge, yet confined enough to make you lose your mind if you're trapped there for too long. Combine that with the shelves, lights, foods, and various other items that could topple over at the slightest shake, and you've got the makings of a warzone. Darabont uses this confined setting and the alien invasion that transpires within as a microcosm for the disintegration of a civilized society reduced to their most primitive instinct of survival. The wail of the air-raid siren makes for the most terrifying sound, amplified and prolonged to put us on edge and foretell the unimaginable danger preparing to overtake this supermarket and the entire town beyond. Once the mist grows to the size of a tidal wave and rapidly washes over the supermarket, Darabont visually announces that life will never again be the same for this close-knit community, and even more personally harrowing for David and Billy, they may never again be reunited with Stephanie, who's waiting for them all alone in their home... with a broken upstairs window.
Despite Darabont's intimate focus on an assortment of the trapped residents of Bridgton, the protagonist of The Mist is obviously David Drayton. It's his studio we're initially transported to, he's the first character we meet, and it's primarily through his eyes that we witness this catastrophe unravel. Thomas Jane is flawlessly cast in the role, in part because his ability to emote is second to none, and even more so because his imposing physique paints a suggestion that is largely followed through, yet cleverly subverted by the screenplay. Physically, Jane is a force to be reckoned with. He's the type of man whose side you'd desperately want to be on in a situation such as this. His arms are muscular, his voice gruff and unmistakably masculine, and his eyes often brooding. However, Jane plays David as a classic Everyman: intelligent, rational, soft-spoken, kindhearted, proactive, and levelheaded. As surreal and seemingly impossible as the crisis becomes, David is able to maintain his composure all the way through. He's naturally gregarious, possessing the ability to befriend anyone he meets, and more than willing to lend a helping hand to anyone who needs it, even if they've treated him disrespectfully. In a short amount of time, David develops a bond with some of his fellow survivors, most intimately with Amanda, recognizing that the only way they stand a chance on getting through each night is by forming alliances and seeking comfort from -- and offering it to -- those ensnared in the same supermarket, in the same crisis. They're all in this nightmare together, and David knows that it's okay to be scared, to not know what to do. But the worst thing would be to turn on one another and lose sight of the humanity that binds them, no matter how different they are in personality, background, social status, or age. David is a reflection of the most benevolent of human nature. It takes a lot to poke him into displaying an angrier side, but when pushed hard enough -- as when two "willfully dense" mechanics let their machismo and denial get in the way of their judgment, costing the life of an innocent, albeit stupid, teenage bag boy -- he will lose his nearly ironclad temper and explode into a fit of rage that Jane portrays with intense intimidation and ferocious aggression.
As willing as he is to assist strangers and be a warm friend to those in need, David's number one priority is always his son, Billy. Their demonstrative relationship is the heart and soul of The Mist. Every decision that David makes is fueled by an instinctive desire to keep his son alive and safe. When Billy suffers a breakdown following the initial earthquake that announces the gravity of their disaster, David scoops him up in his arms and carries him around an empty aisle like a baby, using his composure, warmth, and sense of humor to try to calm him down. "You can't keep crying like this, pal; you're gonna hurt yourself."
While David may satisfy the function of the official protagonist, Darabont makes the intelligent, thoughtful choice to distribute the heroic acts of valor among a few of his supporting characters as well. In a more conventional telling of the story, all of those traits would be limited strictly to big, buff David. He would be the one who fires a bullet through every last member of the invading alien species. He would be the one who puts a permanent stop to Mrs. Carmody's ultimate reign of power-hungry terror. He would be the one who saves the day, gets everyone back home to their families, and emerges as the sole hero of the Bridgton, Maine disaster. Interestingly, a character who turns out to be way more of a badass than you'd initially suspect is none other than assistant manager Ollie Weeks. In another stroke of casting creativity, Darabont scores a bulls-eye with Toby Jones, who possesses the stereotypical exterior of an old, likely virginal nerd: short, chubby, not exactly blessed with the most appealing of faces, and, as the cherry on top, wearing a pair of glasses. Ollie comes across as the type of meek, friendly person who was bullied as a child, still lives with his mother, is too shy to ask out the woman of his dreams, and is easily imposed on even now in his middle age. As portrayed with dignity, world-weary skepticism, and a pair of brass balls by Jones, there's a helluva lot more to Ollie than meets the eye, revealing an unexpected inner strength and a refusal to back down to bullies, including his own boss. The first official sign of his hitherto unseen badassery arrives when Bud threatens to fire him for substantiating David's claim of an alien invasion. "Fine, take down names, but in the meantime, shut the fuck up and listen!" Ollie orders with a quiet, matter-of-fact ferocity and fearlessness that stuns Bud as much as the viewer. In another twist reveal that earns a condescending snicker of incredulity from Bud, Ollie is revealed to be experienced with guns, having won a state championship for shooting in 1994 -- a talent he hasn't lost, and utilizes to mow down some of the aliens. Once Mrs. Carmody's thirst for control reaches a lethal crescendo, brainwashing her followers into nearly sacrificing an innocent child to appease the beasts, it is Ollie who steps in at exactly the right moment to put his longtime skill to life-saving use in a moment of pure, fist-pumping exhilaration. If not the true hero of the story, he certainly emerges as a true hero.
Even old-lady Irene, played beautifully by Sheriff Buster's loyal, sharp-tongued, humorously horny wife and deputy, Virginia, from Rob Reiner's Misery, is given two moments to show that the advancement of age doesn't guarantee a decrease in resourcefulness, bravery, or ferocity: one in which she makes a makeshift flamethrower using bug spray and a lighter to set an alien ablaze, and the other in which she uses a can of peas to silence the psychotic ramblings of Mrs. Carmody, referring to her as a "miserable buzzard" and offering a biblical justification for her assault.
Speaking of the final recipient of Ollie's flair for bullet-firing, Marcia Gay Harden doesn't steal every scene in which she appears, so much as she dominates. In terms of background history for Mrs. Carmody, Darabont makes the conscious choice to withhold completely, relying instead on the sheer strength of the performance submitted by Harden. What we see of her religious fanatic is all we get. We meet Mrs. Carmody when she wanders into the supermarket, complaining about the excess of shoppers clogging up the lines, and we part ways with her in the same place, lying flat on her black on the floor, a trickle of blood oozing from her stomach and forehead. As embodied by Harden, it is everything we need to know about her. If there were justice for 21st-century horror, Marcia Gay Harden would have at the very least been nominated at the 2008 Oscar ceremony for Best Supporting Actress. Not just in terms of delivering the "best" supporting performance of any movie in 2007, but one of the best supporting performances in a horror movie probably ever. Perceiving this madwoman as the role of her career, Harden assumes leadership over the entire production with a stellar, unforgettably terrifying portrayal of religious fanaticism that surpasses that of Piper Laurie in Brian De Palma's Carrie. Whereas Laurie, who actually received a nomination for Best Supporting Actress, and justifiably so, interpreted her horror movie as more of a comedy, and took it upon herself to run with that by embracing the absurdity of organized religion, Harden takes her assignment a little more seriously, opting for a more grounded and complex portrait of religious devotion curdled into irrational madness. She contrasts Laurie's deliciously over-the-top theatricality with a legitimately frightening (and frighteningly believable) conviction that makes Mrs. Carmody significantly more real and even slightly tragic.
Stephen King clearly has a fondness for writing his female villains as self-described followers of Christ who present as friendly and loving, only to uplift their masks in times of dissent and unveil the twisted, raving psychopath beneath. First there was Margaret White, a fire-and-brimstone zealot who abused her own daughter in the guise of shielding her from a life of sin, then Annie Wilkes, a nurse who rescued her favorite author from a car accident and nursed him back to health, only to make him wish he had just died in it. Compared to Carmody, however, both women come across as misunderstood, well-intentioned angels. While Kathy Bates was by far the most deserving of her awarded win for Best Actress, it's pitiful that Harden is the only one of the three not to even receive a nomination. She inhabits this character inside and out as though it was conceived specifically for her, achieving the rare victory of making it impossible to envision any other actress in the role.
While Darabont eschews any tidbits about her life prior to the commencement of this invasion, Harden is given one scene to display Mrs. Carmody's hidden vulnerability and underlying humanity. Sitting on her knees in a bathroom stall, her tear-streaked face filmed in close-up and illuminated only by the faint orange glow of a candle, she softly delivers a private prayer to God, pleading with Him to invest her with the power to save those who deserve to be so that her "life will have counted for something." Without going into details, this plea hints at a profound, internalized sadness, as though something tragic struck her or perhaps her loved ones in the past and she is now seeking redemption. Mrs. Carmody is desperate to lead others to salvation in order to earn her place in Heaven when the time comes, possibly to compensate for a past sin that's never elaborated on in the script. It paints her as self-serving, wishing to save others to benefit her in the long run, but nonetheless avoids the notion that she's a one-dimensional "religious nut."
Apart from her loyalty to God, the antisocial Mrs. Carmody raises her middle finger to the proposal of human friendship, evinced in a tense, nervous laughter-inducing interaction with Amanda following her prayer. From the beginning of the mist's envelopment, Carmody frequently pulls out her trusty Bible and recites passages comparing instances therein to their current situation, referring to the aliens as locusts sent upon the earth to punish society for their sinful behaviors, and Harden sermonizes with the authority and borderline unhinged fervor of a genuine lifelong disciple. The supermarket becomes her church, and the patrons her congregation. At first, only a few people stop to actually listen to the "religious puke," as my mother so elegantly calls it, spouted by Carmody, but as more lives are taken each night, and faith in her ramblings consistently grows, more and more people join her side and begin to sacrifice their individuality, their conscience, their ability to differentiate between right and wrong, all in the name of bettering their chances for survival, the most understandable of all human desires. As a result, Mrs. Carmody's already fragile grip on reality gradually deteriorates into deluded psychopathy, her stated desire to help innocents giving way to a god complex. Whatever conscience she entered the store with now becomes consumed by a narcissistic hunger for power and control. Mrs. Carmody no longer considers herself a follower of God, but rather His vessel, sent on Earth to spread his teachings and lead mankind to an everlasting salvation.
When she feels her efforts are being appreciated, Harden gives Carmody a creepy half-smile, hinting at the power-obsessed psychopath lurking within the holier-than-thou exterior. By the time she's screaming for the sacrifices of "the boy" and "the whore," Mrs. Carmody has evolved from a woman of God struggling to reconcile her love for her maker with her fear of meeting Him prematurely into a full-fledged villain in need of being put down immediately. We may never learn her backstory or even her first name, but Harden's blood-curdling performance makes Mrs. Carmody a modern horror icon whose imprint will never diminish. (Arguably more disturbing is the notion that there's a Mr. Carmody, who would have to be even crazier than she is, waiting for her at home.)
As Billy, the eight-year-old son of David tragically forced to bear witness to the horrors of the world, both supernatural and man-made, Nathan Gamble delivers a spellbinding performance, running the gamut of emotions suitable for someone his age. At the beginning of the story, on the morning after the thunderstorm, Gamble portrays Billy as an exuberant and carefree child, elated by the destruction of his boathouse and eager to show his parents, with both of whom he shares a close relationship. Once the initial earthquake hits the supermarket in which he finds himself and his dad trapped, Gamble strips himself emotionally naked, dissolving into an unashamedly hysterical wreck and crying in his father's arms for his mother. Out of shock, he reverts to the babyish habit of sucking on his thumb as he rests his head in his father's lap. Not since Haley Joel Osment's Oscar-nominated turn in The Sixth Sense, which set the bar for child acting in horror that has yet to be surpassed, has a little boy put himself in harm's way on camera with the maturity, poise, professionalism, and unaffected vulnerability brought to bear by Gamble. In his most emotionally demanding scene, Gamble is positioned opposite Thomas Jane, the latter of whom is telling his son he's going next door to a pharmacy to retrieve medical supplies, despite his son's impassioned plea against the idea. A seemingly interminable supply of unforced tears cascade down Gamble's cheeks and drip from his chin, his voice cracking with a heartbreaking desperation and terror he can't find the right words to express.
The screenplay for The Mist runs afoul of some unfortunate cliches in order to enforce its otherworldly agenda, the most egregious of which is my most abhorred in all of horror: characters behaving idiotically for the sole purpose of increasing the body count. Fortunately, Darabont is smart enough to portray his small group of protagonists as intelligent, goodhearted, clear-thinking individuals who look out for one another and make the most judicious decisions their minds can possibly formulate under such duress. These are the people we're expected to root for and sympathize with, and Darabont and his cast attain that mission from suspenseful start to agonizing finish. However, that doesn't excuse a small roster of supporting characters who behave unreasonably foolishly at the start of the invasion, forfeiting their right to audience compassion once they inevitably bite the mist. The first offender, who consequently doubles as the first onscreen victim, is Norm the bag boy, played by the longer-haired but still facially off-putting as ever Chris Owen, AKA "The Sherminator" in the American Pie franchise. A nerdy teenager in pathetically desperate need of proving his manhood, Norm is so stupid and reckless that when a large, tentacled creature bangs on the garage door in the backroom, he insists on opening the door and going outside to fix the generator, stubbornly refusing to heed David's warning not to. Beyond merely acting stupidly, Norm becomes belligerent, telling David to "just shut the fuck up already" and calling him a pussy. Chuck Sherman might have been a cocky, sex-obsessed liar with an unhealthy obsession with The Terminator, but at least he was likable and sympathetic. Norm is just a brainless asshole who deserves the brutal fate he cockily walks himself into, in a shockingly bloody set piece that goes on a little too long to maintain its horror.
Next on the chopping block is Brent Norton, who bears the distinction of being possibly even stupider than Norm by way of age. Like David says to Norm's indirect executioners, Jim and Myron, "He's a kid. He's supposed to be stupid. What's your excuse?" Here's another thing: aside from being a teenager, Norm was a bagger at a grocery store, not exactly a job that requires intelligence. Brent, on the other hand, is a successful lawyer who owns a home on the same lakeside as David. How can someone so definitionally intelligent be such an oversensitive, childishly uncooperative, illogically stubborn moron outside the courtroom? When David, Ollie, Myron, and Jim inform him of what happened to Norm, naturally he's more than a little skeptical. That's understandable. But his skepticism quickly proves frustrating as it turns to derisive laughter. While Brent could have chosen the right side of the divide by joining David and continuing on the road to friendship they appeared to be steering toward, he instead becomes a sort of antagonist who (A) you know is going to die, and (B) you want to see die. (No such luck on the "seeing" aspect.) The cause of David and Brent's rivalry is verbally divulged: a year ago, Brent filed a lawsuit against David (over what, we're not told) and lost. This bitter history, combined with the admittedly outrageous claim of an alien murder, has led Brent to the asinine assumption that David and his corroborating witnesses are conspiring to humiliate him in retribution. When invited to the backroom to see the evidence for himself, he steadfastly refuses, his underdeveloped brain fearing that the men will attempt to freak him out with rubber tentacles and cow blood. Yikes. And this guy actually made it through four years of college, three years of law school, and passed the bar exam? Do New York law firms just have dangerously lower standards for admittance? Using his rationale and persuasive delivery as a lawyer to convince the townsfolk that the cause of this disaster is natural, Brent manages to gather a small army of men to venture outside with him into the mist, but not before confidently asserting to David, "There's nothing out there. Nothing in the mist." Aside from a couple moronic side characters, Darabont also incorporates the dreaded lack of cellphone service to prevent characters from getting in touch with their families, but at least backs that up with a credible explanation: the thunderstorm terminated the power lines in town.
In presenting his creepy-crawly bloodsuckers to the audience, Darabont elects to have his cake and eat it too. At the commencement of the alien invasion, he conceals their appearances within the titular sheet of white to preserve their mystique and generate an atmosphere of suspense and impending carnage. When a strange man decides to make a run for it to his car, he disappears into the mist and the last we hear from him is an excruciating scream, provoking the patrons to lock the door and aurally cluing us in to the life-threatening, flesh-tearing danger of going outside. At first, we might even think this is some kind of social experiment. Perhaps the military deliberately unleashed the mist, and their Arrowhead Project is a scientific study of the nature and effects of human fear, sending in actors to warn the townsfolk about monsters hiding inside to evaluate their differing reactions. In retrospect, that might have made for an even more fascinating and inventive psychological horror story than the CGI-fueled creature feature we actually get.
However, listen up, horror filmmakers: this is how CGI should look in your movies. The first taste we receive of the monsters lurking within the mist consists of only massive tentacles that dissolve into acid when poked with an object. Once night descends on the supermarket, that's when Darabont elects to unleash his ghastly creations at full throttle, showcasing every inch of their dark-colored, rail-thin, awe-inspiring bodies as they smash their way through the glass windows, thirsting for human blood. These pterodactyl-like monstrosities are absolutely horrifying in their realism, appearing initially as oversized locusts with wings to enable them to fly and a stinger to instantly bring about a deeply painful death to whoever it impales. If not their stinger, they rely on their razor-sharp teeth. Like moths, they're inexplicably attracted to light. Other variations of this species assume the form of an oversized spider, sporting multiple spindly legs and the ability to shoot out acidic webs that burn through human flesh. The final alien is a case of the biggest being reserved for last, a gargantuan, six-legged, crustacean-like behemoth whose upper body sprouts tentacles and whose footsteps are heavy enough to elevate a truck. For communication, they emit piercing shrieks and rageful roars. While difficult to defeat in packs, they can be killed by bullets, fire, and a good old-fashioned, bug-appropriate stomping.
The most elemental fear of the human condition is probably of the dark, which Darabont and his cinematographer, Rohn Schmidt, exploit to full effect. Because of the power going out at the beginning of the story, they are given carte blanche to prey on this universal anxiety by submerging their characters in the dark for the majority of the runtime. During the daytime, there's a minimal sense of security, but as soon as the sun subsides and the moon supersedes, Schmidt goes to town, providing his disoriented actors with only candles and flashlights to penetrate the gloom of the supermarket. A haunting image that he frequently returns to is back shots of groups of characters walking cautiously into the mountain of mist and promptly getting swallowed up, the frame submerged in a wall of milky white. During instances of brutal violence, such as when Private Wayne Jessup (Sam Witwer) is ganged up on and stabbed repeatedly in the stomach for withholding information on the invasion, editor Hunter M. Via cuts to the horrified reaction shots of his characters, the most authentic and powerful coming from Laurie Holden's Amanda. By contrast, Schmidt also uses facial close-ups to capture his characters' awe at the appearances of the invaders, an impressive feat considering the actors are responding merely to motion-capture dots. Schmidt favors slow camera movements to create a destabilizing mood, zooming out seamlessly from the outside back into the supermarket through the transparent glass door. In another memorable shot, after a sacrifice is made to sate the beasts' appetite for the night, Schmidt pans his camera slowly across the relieved faces of the now-brainwashed patrons as they turn their heads one by one to face their newfound leader. Once David and his crew exit the supermarket and round up in the former's truck, the yellow beams of the headlights penetrate the mist.
Recognizing that silence has the ability to create greater suspense than an ear-splitting soundtrack, and a whisper can pack more of a punch than a bang, Darabont reserves his most prominent use of music for the final reel of The Mist, relying less on an original score by Academy Award-nominated composer Mark Isham than the song, "Host of Seraphim," by the band, Dead Can Dance. This song, a spiritual anthem sung by Lisa Gerrard as a mournful wail, feeds into the biblical atmosphere of inescapable doom prophesized by Mrs. Carmody and becomes integral to the pitch-black ending. Speaking of which, it would be impossible to write a review for The Mist without diving into the ending, possibly the darkest, most pessimistic, and tragically ironic in horror history. But does that necessarily make it one of the best?
When it comes to the ending of The Mist, many audiences consider themselves split between drastically opposing sides of the debate: they either love it or hate it. My take is a little more nuanced. I neither love the ending nor hate it. To be clear, it is by no means a "stupid" ending. In terms of execution, it's brilliantly acted, shot, directed, and edited. Once David and Billy make it back to their truck with Amanda, Irene, and Dan in tow, David drives back to his home, only to find his wife's lifeless body cocooned in a web. Devastated but determined to push forward, he continues driving until his truck runs out of gas, at which time he pulls out Ollie's gun which contains four bullets. Driven by a solemn promise he made to Billy to never allow the monsters to get him, David shoots his son and three companions, intending after to step outside and allow himself to be eaten by an alien. However, in the cruelest twist of fate, David learns that the U.S. Army has taken control of the catastrophe, exterminating the remaining aliens and rescuing any survivors. Realizing that his preventative group execution was in vain, David collapses to his knees and lets out a wail of anguish, forced to spend the rest of his life without his wife and son, haunted by the memory of what he's done.
From a logical standpoint, this fatalistic ending is airtight. Darabont patiently builds up to his characters' mutual decision to make it equally heartbreaking and understandable, with editor Via cutting back and forth between close-ups of their faces, hopeless and horrified of meeting their fate at the clawed hands of the aliens. Not a word passes between them, only the resigned nod of approval from Dan and the despairing tears of Amanda. The roar of an alien echoes nearby, making them falsely assume it's approaching, and therefore must make their decision quickly. When the moment of action finally arrives, Via cuts to an exterior shot of the truck, from which the chilling sound of four gunshots emanates, each accompanied by a flash. From a written standpoint, however, Darabont the writer isn't as devilishly clever as he thinks he is. It's as though when he sat down to compose the ending, he set out to make it as cruel and despondent as humanly possible, and that effort shows. It's too labored in its darkness to pack as powerful of a gut-punch as is clearly intended. More coldly calculated and pretentious than profound.
If there's a message to be derived from The Mist, it's virtually identical to every anti-exploration sci-fi horror that positions aliens as its antagonists: don't go searching for something more. As a human species, it's natural to be curious about the potential existence of other planets housing extraterrestrial life forms. That accounts for why we have so many documentaries of people claiming to have found evidence of an alien species or accounts of abduction, none of which have ever been sufficiently corroborated. We want to believe there's something else out there, something bigger and smarter than us, looking down and maybe planning to someday make contact. If you want a benevolent interpretation of how that encounter might play out, watch Close Encounters of the Third Kind or E.T., both directed by warmhearted optimist Steven Spielberg. What Stephen King, and by extension Frank Darabont, is arguing here is the malevolent opposite: be grateful for what you have and accept that it's all there is. The cause of this story's disaster lies in the hubris of mortal man; a group of overambitious scientists, unwilling to contain their hunger for scientific discovery, desired to create a "window" into another dimension, only to have that window pan out as a door, permitting this new world to spill over into our own, with lethal consequences.
As delusional and ultimately homicidal as Mrs. Carmody may be, she does assert one valid philosophical point: the secrets of life, as powerfully as they arouse our interest and hankering for knowledge, are entitled only to the man upstairs. And as an infamous mad scientist demonstrated a little under a century ago, when a mortal man gives himself the right to play God, the consequences are sure to be dire.
7.3/10
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