The Mist (2007)

Rewatched 3/6/24 (Blu-Ray)

A very good B-movie that reminds me quite a bit thematically of Dan Campbell. There’s gonna be some missteps along the way, but they’re just going to keep going for it on fourth down, no matter what. Sometimes it will pay off, sometimes it won’t. Most of it does, though, and it makes for an engaging watch or at the very least an engaging argument.

You can’t talk about this movie without talking about the ending. I love the ending—it’s fucking brutal and unlike anything else. It’s like that Lions Cowboys game where Dan couldn’t stop going for two despite it being clear that the refs were conspiring to fuck them over. The world is against David and he does what he has to. Insane finish.

But it’s a brutality that is earned with how equally harrowing the lead-up is. Person after person die in the most horrific ways possible—with the creature design being A#1 and, in my opinion, the reason to watch this movie, especially with the black-and-white cut where you can’t take nearly as much notice of the slippery CG. But hey, indie movie with an indie budget and they GO for it on fourth down. They make sure that they are putting 110% into some truly gruesome creatures that just make you sick to your stomach as they move their claws or pincers or stingers up and down human bodies, tearing limbs and throats and lives apart. Every time a mist monster touches a human character it’s maximum sick-to-your-stomach suspense and gore thanks to the effects, editing, and sound design. I really think this one deserves credit as some of the best CG-creature use in movie history. Just when you think it doesn’t look so perfect, it’s used in a way that makes you squeal so much you realize you were wrong to question it. A real showcase of direction over budget.

But then Darabont stumbles in equal measure. Not at all surprised this is a Walking Dead guy as he is just obsessed with building a giant roster of characters just to kill them off surprisingly minutes later. For me you can only do those setup/shock kills once or twice a movie. Killing off everyone right after setting them up with development is a surefire way to make an audience feel like their time has been wasted. That’s how I feel after a while in this movie—it coulda been 25 minutes shorter. No one is developed enough to warrant all of this extra time. I’m not always a “book is better than the movie” guy, but in this respect the book takes the cake as we get a lot more David and less seemingly random, gimmicky character setup. There are long stretches of this film where it’s just dialogue and it all feels like a bit of an overindulgent choice by the end when everyone’s dead. The Carpenterian, more economical, more action-forward approach to this isolated Rio-Bravo-with-monsters story could have behooved this movie without a doubt.

With that in mind, I try to take this movie at face value as a VERY solid, if flawed, King adaptation with one of the cooler casts of somewhat-recognizable faces in 21st Century horror. In the hierarchy of King adaptations, this sits pretty high for me. Tom Jane is wooden but sells dull-guy-in-over-his-head pretty well. The script doesn’t lead him on to be more than he is. Sadler is great as always as a shit heel. Shermanator from American Pie shows up for five minutes and gets wrecked by a tentacle so that’s great. Toby Jones as a grocer/sniper hybrid, maybe the first of those to ever appear in a film. And then there’s a who’s who of Walking Dead alum who all serve their purposes—all solid enough. Sam Witwer, a very strange actor, and his intense eyebrows are here taking a break from everything Star Wars. Andre Braugher is GREAT but isn’t in it nearly enough…he feels a bit underutilized despite his role being faithful to the novella.

And then there is Marcia Gay Harden who is nothing short of phenomenal. You are so quick to hate her and she is laying it on so thick and so convincingly that you can’t help but tip your cap to her by the end. She is selling her shit so hard as the bonkers Bible nut and it’s just effortless for her. In fact, she’s so good that it’s one of those situations where you see MGH in something else where she isn’t this way and it’s just weird. I can only see her as this character, Mrs. Carmody.

Anyways, watch this one if you have the stomach and don’t suffer from extreme arachnophobia. I personally do suffer, but this is such a great slice of retro action/horror that despite that, its weird pacing/character blips and the until-now-unremarked-upon mid-shot zooms like their DP was moonlighting on The Office episodes, this one’s worth watching if you like the genre.

7.5/10