"The Mist" is the latest Stephen King adapt to hit the big screen. The previous Stephen King adapt to land on the silver screen was "1408", and although "The Mist" was absent of Samuel L. Jackson and John Cusack, the film overall was alot better. The movie follows a married father of one named David Drayton (Thomas Jane) who's day starts off on the downside when a tree comes crashing through his window as aresult of a freak storm, which causes him to confront his neighbor Brent Norton (Andre Braugher) with whom he has a shaky relationship with. But the tree and the issue of why Brent didn't cut it down sooner becomes a moot point when a mysterious fog comes rolling across the lake that sits in front of their house.
Thinking nothing of it besides it being a storm cloud, David and Brent, after settling their issues head to the local grocers to pick up some supplies, with David taking his son along with him. But the mysterious fog proves not to be far behind, and once it engulfs the supermarket and everything around it, that's when the real terror begins. "The Mist" is not your typical monster movie, and this is something people need to be aware of before going into the pic. If you think "The Mist" will be similar to such romps as "Eight Legged Freaks", and "Jurassic Park", where at every turn there's a non-human enemy waiting to strike, think again.
While the film does offer up alot in the line of terrifying otherwordly monsters and them wreaking havoc all over the place, the film also explores human behavior, and what can happen when a group of strangers are tossed into a life or death situation with so many things dividing them such as religious beliefs, geographical origins, social status, etc. "The Mist" also works in parts, beginning with the strange fog setting in over the supermarket, followed by the disbelief that there's anything in the mist, and then the terrifying realization that there are indeed creatures that lurk within the mist.
As the film builds from point, to point, to point...human nature also begins to set in amongst the stores inhabitants which ends up metaphorically creating monsters on the inside, which prove to be just as dangerous as those on the outside. A scenario which proves dangerous for David who has his son to look after as well as himself. David does however manage to find an ally in the madness named Amanda, played by Laurie Holden. But an enemy also emerges amongst the pandemonium taking place inside, Mrs. Carmody..played brilliantly by Marcia Gay Harden. An uber-religious woman with a sharp tongue, who uses the current situation to influence others to her fundamentalist beliefs and manages to cause further divisiveness in an already tense situation.
Harden's character is interesting to watch and I would say in many ways steals the show, and as things get worse, more people begin to die, and Carmody's biblical ramblings begin to come to fruition...her number of followers begin to grow. The creatures in the film however do not play second fiddle to their human counterparts, as there are alot of creature attack scenes in the film, and they are pretty gruesome and intense as well. The monsters in the film are also kept faithful to the novel written by King, and despite some of them drawing similarities to past and present insects and mammals, it's pretty hard for the viewer to even try and guess or speculate as to what the creatures might be considering they're so weird looking.
But there are just as many intense human versus human sequences, as there are intense man versus monster sequences in the picture. "The Mist" gets really good in it's final act which holds alot of surprises which concern the origins of the monsters, things coming to a boil within the supermarket, a shocking ending, and much more. Although "The Mist" does get cliche at times with scenarios such as foolish people testing the mysterious fog by stepping out into it, and thick-headed people refusing to believe what's going on outside until it's too late, even those scenes come off as semi-likeable in this movie, due to it being written so well by writer/director Frank Darabont. "The Mist" is a smart horror movie, which does what many other horror films (monster movies in particular) rarely succeed at doing...which is creating two different sets of monsters to scare it's audience, creating characters for which we can cheer for, and not just limiting itself to being a blood-soaked creature feature with little to no character development.
Positives:Great writing, very intense action sequences, a suitable amount of blood and gore, great hero's and villains, and stunning performances. Negatives:I felt the ending was a bit unfair. Overall:Good movie with alot of different dimensions.
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