The Mist

I respect Stephen King. The sheer amount of words that he has let loose from his keyboard over the span of his career is mind-boggling. As someone who stumbles their way through blog posts, I am amazed at his ability to both birth and raise a story, and at the regularity at which he does it. The stories get gobbled up by Hollywood almost as fast as he can write, and the list of adaptations of his work has over 100 items on it. The quality of these adaptations varies greatly. The Mist is helmed by Frank Darabont, the man responsible for two of King’s less-horrific films, The Green Mile and more impressively, The Shawshank Redemption. Having Darabont on board should have been a recipe for success, but The Mist is an adaptation that would have been better left on the page.

As you can gather from the title the movie is about an ominous mist that engulfs a small town. A group of townsfolk out shopping seek shelter inside a small grocery store, and while it isn’t as nice as hiding in a mall, it at least it offers some similar supplies. Are there strange bugs and monsters hidden in the mist? And what will the people do when they’re trapped together with a shrinking hope for survival?

OK, if you have been clicking my links in that previous paragraph you may have already grasped my biggest issue with the movie. It is completely and totally unoriginal. The only thing I will give it points for are some of the creature designs. Everything else is like a checklist of plot points, movie scenes, and characters that have been rehashed time and again. Hero dad trying to protect his kid – check. Angry black man that is bound to become yet another horror movie casualty – check. Crazy person that shows us that the real monsters are the humans cracking under pressure – check. Wimpy, timid character that reveals a stronger personality at an opportune time – check. Characters that inexplicably act mind-bogglingly irrational at the most puzzling times – check. It goes on and on and on. One sequence in the film meant to up the tension and panic of the viewer just left me thinking to myself, “didn’t I see this exact same shit in Aliens?!”

Ah ha, but could this be a case of the movies I’ve seen through the years copying a story that had never been translated onto film? After all, The Mist was first published in 1980. Well, with the exception of the Aliens reference, all the films/stories I linked to came out before, or in the case of The Fog, during 1980. Swing and a miss.

Which brings us to the big talking point of the film – the ending. Darabont is obviously a big enough fan of King’s to know that the endings of his stories are where he seems to struggle the most, and so he decided to write a new ending for the film himself. The ending is supposed to be shocking, make your jaw drop, and get you talking after the credits roll. I suppose it could do that, especially if you’re someone that hasn’t had a chance to watch any classic episodes of The Twilight Zone. Yes, it is a harsh and sudden ending, but only until you stop and think about it. The movie nerd side of me has technical problems with it that take away some of its impact, but I will spare you the details. The logical side of me says, “Well… what exactly was supposed to happen to these people trapped in a mist with weird monsters?” Lastly, the guy that heard an interview with Darabont where he dissed Kubrick’s version of The Shining, and referred to it as cold and mean, is wondering how in the hell his comments jibe with the ending of this movie?

While I understand everything The Mist set out to do, it just didn’t grab me at all. If you haven’t seen some of the movies I’ve linked, or you’re a huge King fan that will geek out to any and all Dark Tower references, then this is worth watching. For anyone else with an itch for watching some bad weather/claustrophobic horror, I think you’d be better served hitting up a double feature of John Carpenter’s The Fog and The Thing.

The Mist @ IMDB

Stephen King @ IMDB (look at it and imagine how nice it must be to sleep on piles of money)