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David Drayton (Thomas Jane) has a mess to clean up after the night of a big storm. Trees have trashed portions of his Maine property including a boathouse that even has his son going “wow!” Trying to simmer some past tension between him and neighbor, Brent Norton (Andre Braugher), they settle their dividing lines like men and take a ride into town with David’s son, Billy (Nathan Gamble) while mom waits at home. The supermarket is fairly jammed with folks gathering supplies while phone service is currently a goner. An influx of military trucks can be seen on the road. That’s when a bloodied townsman (Jeffrey DeMunn) comes-a-screaming “there’s something in the mist!” And as the blinding cloud, first spotted at the outskirts of David’s home, comes trolling in the patrons lock up shop and await for the mysterious fog to settle.

While heeding the words of warning from one of their neighbors, everyone gathers in their own little groups, some for comfort and others a way out. With a stockroom generator blocked from the outside, Jim Grondin (William Sadler) knows the solution but involves sending an eager stockboy who volunteers to fix the problem while David and elder bagboy, Ollie (Toby Jones) watch on. That’s when they get their first look at what lies within the mist and escape falls to the bottom of the resort pile. Despite evidence of the encounter, there are disbelievers but, more eerily, actual believers. Just one actually in the form of Mrs. Carmody (an exceptional Marcia Gay Harden), a fire-and-brimstone Christian who believes they are witnessing the end of days and has her quotable bible just handy in hopes to convince the lot that the only way to avoid their doom is to embrace it.

What follows is the classic horror scenario of a trapped gathering of various personalities bent on clashing in plotting their next move. While normally kept to around a baker’s dozen of major faces, The Mist makes use of the “it takes a village” mantra to ante up the potential body count of a disaster flick. Along with the already mentioned regulars, there’s also: Amanda Dunfries (Laurie Holden), a married schoolteacher; Irene (Frances Sternhagen), the practical old-timer; stockgirl Sally (Alexa Davelos), the serviceman (Sam Witwer) with a longstanding crush on her (who shares the surname of a militaryman made famous by Jack Nicholson), his fellow on-leave buds and various brothers and friends all doing their part to fend off the invasion with one gun, torches and a seemingly limitless supply of pet food.

Darabont’s adaptation pulls off a rather unique display of balancing it’s attack sequences with the far more terrifying implications of human nature. It’s fair share of set pieces are carefully initiated through necessity rather than the stupidity of horror characters doing horror things to deliver scares on cue. When people don’t believe in what’s out there early on, we’re being setup not for the standard offering of “I told you so” bloodletting but the onset of the limitations on faith and how those on the supposed right side of it are empowered. The steady progression of Mrs. Carmody from nutcase to rallier is key to the molding of the film’s suspense and the unfathomable irony that it may be more dangerous inside what becomes God’s house than to brave the terror that the world has in store outside head-on.

The Mist is full of these little ironies and like the best dissections of religious and political paradoxes, it flummoxes the viewer into reevaluating what you’ve just witnessed from both sides. Forgoing the lessons learned in Jaws into teasing us with the monster (thus making the unknown of the imagination far more frightening), Darabont gives us a glance early on. Only at parts, mind you, but still large enough to dilute the eeriness that may initially disappoint the horror fans who appreciate terror of the mind to just another CGI effect. But it’s a necessary evil to place the audience on the obvious side of those in the know. Our own eyes don’t lie. And the reluctance to face that belief is understandable on the larger scale apart from the anonymosity that exists between David and his neighbor. So how do we face our own reluctance to buy into Mrs. Carmody’s beliefs? Because she behaves like a lunatic, brandishing fear through the bloodpoint pen of her God we see her as dangerous and clearly Darabont does too. But does her faith make her wrong or just delusional? Does a creature stave off its attack on her because she’s God’s vessel or simply because she stays put like we would a snake or a bee? Does the same creature leave our hero alone after he manages to grab a gun or because its acting out a grander design to make us destroy ourselves?

Stephen King’s novella was a great starting point for many of the issues back in 1980 when it was originally published. Now, he looks more visionary than ever and that’s in large part to the strategic maneuvering of Darabont’s screenplay. Unlike the preachiness of a Lions for Lambs or the uneven melding of wacky comedy and environmental tampering in The Host, Darabont has masterfully found the elements of both a creature feature and hot button themes to craft a parable of enormous power from its expert setup to its devastatingly radical conclusion. The repeated elements of King’s storied history certainly make their cameos and Darabont is respectful enough of the source material to not just flesh it out but get under the flesh of organized cliques bent on controlling the people in order to control their own little world. Man’s tampering with the flow of nature is more than just a speck from the scientifical universe hinted at here. Natural selection is also not to be set upon decisions made in the name of God. The resolve of our will should be free enough to make mistakes beset on impatience and salvation – as long as its our will and not the will of others. Who may be right after all. What a world, huh? And what a movie The Mist makes of it.

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originally posted: 11/21/07 16:00:00
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