The Third Draft

The Mist (2007)                                                       Back to Reviews
by Coach Patton
©D. Patton, All Rights Reserved

Written & Directed by Frank Darabont

Running Length: 2:05  Rated: R (Gore, violence, profanity)
 
Cast: Thomas Jane, Marcia Gay Harden, Toby Jones, Laurie Holden, Frances Sternhagen, Andre Braugher, William Sadler, Alexa Davalos, Jeffery DeMunn

Plot: A powerful thunderstorm unleashes a mist that envelops a small Maine town. Dozens are trapped inside a supermarket knowing that in the mist are horrible creatures which feed on humans. Being stranded takes its psychological toll. The trapped shoppers split into 2 camps: those who believe it is an act of a vengeful god who demands human sacrifice and those don't. Based on a novella by Stephen King, long considered one of his scariest.

Fear Changes Everything

Frank Darabont’s adaptations of Stephen King’s writings are not just some of the best mountings of the writer’s work but some of the best films, period, of recent years: The Shawshank Redemption, anyone? The Green Mile? So I don’t think it’s too outrageous—or too surprising—to say that The Mist, which Darabont wrote and directed from a King novella, is one of the best horror movies ever made. Period.

Look: B movies went A a long time ago, even before the real world turned into its own kind of science fiction nightmare of drowned cities and kamikaze terrorists, and so isn’t civil disaster the perfect springboard for exploring the most sinister aspects of humanity?

Because, oh yes, there are creatures here with teeth of both the metaphoric and literal kind, but they’re just animals doing what animals do. The monsters of The Mist are the people, and how we give in to fear and give up on hope at the very moments when we don’t need the one and desperately need the other. This is horror of a philosophical, humanistic bent, examining the nightmares of politics and religion on the small scale upon which they act upon individuals, as well as our propensity to dispense with reason at the drop of a hat. . . or a tentacle. For all its fantastical elements, this is as grounded and as immediate and as real as movies get. This is “horror” the way that Rod Serling told it—think the creepy societal breakdown of “The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street,” and you’ve got it.

Ollie: As a species, we're fundamentally insane. Put two of us in a room, we pick sides, and start dreaming up reasons to kill one another.

The civil disaster is an ordinary one: a gusty storm knocks down trees and brings down power lines in one of those outwardly charming, secretly insidious Stephen King small towns. But did it also knock out the power at the local army base, wherein, it is rumored, is housed the remains of a crashed flying saucer and dead alien bodies?

This is the stuff of the polite, time-passing chatter between strained neighbors David Drayton (Thomas Jane: The Punisher) and Brent Norton (Andre Braugher: TV’s Homicide) engage in as they drive into town , with David’s young son, Billy (Nathan Gamble). They're on their way to get groceries and supplies for boarding up windows before the shelves are picked clean.

They’re all in the supermarket when a thick mist descends, obscuring the view out the plate-glass windows beyond a few feet. And then a bloodied man runs into the store, screaming about monsters in the strange fog . . .

It’s quiet inside the store for a while, the couple of dozen people trapped by their uncertainty over what’s happening but not yet giving in to panic. That begins to happen soon enough, however, when no rescue comes and, well, other, more deadly things begin to occur. It’s all smartly, brilliantly, paced, not just the more traditional aspects of what you’d expect from a horror movie—those things with the tentacles in the mist are vicious buggers—but the collapse of the civilization as represented by the little supermarket society.

Tribes start to form along sharply drawn lines, drifting toward either David and his calm logic or Mrs. Carmody (Marcia Gay Harden: Into the Wild), a vocal proponent of hellfire-and-brimstone Biblical literalism, and her preaching about how this is the promised Armageddon, and boy, is God pissed with us or what? (She’s the most terrifying thing about the movie, no question.)

Amanda Dunfrey: I just want you to know that it's okay... being scared. And, well, if you need a friend, someone to talk too...
Mrs. Carmody: I have a friend. God, up above. I talk to him everyday. Don't you condescend me.
Amanda Dunfrey: I'm sorry?
Mrs. Carmody: Not ever. You don't mock me.
Amanda Dunfrey: That's not what I was doing.
Mrs. Carmody: I'll tell you what. The day I need a friend like you, I'll just have myself a little squat and shit one out.

There’s an almost orgasmic rise and fall to *The Mist* in how it scares the hell out of you via the monsters of both the human and the creature varieties, lets you relax with a tension-relieving laugh or two—though the film never indulges in a snarky joke that would break the satisfyingly grim mood—and then starts on you all over again. And if the movie worked purely as that kind of intellectual roller coaster ride and nothing else, that would have been more than enough. But it also offers finely drawn portraits of the kind of positive strength movies of this ilk—or any ilk—rarely see, of a real-masculinity not about bombast or machismo but built up of courage in the face of one’s own fear and a refusal to descend into easy animalism... and not just in the obvious hero character of David but also in, say, the apparently meek assistant supermarket manager played by the ever-essential Toby Jones (*Infamous*). Hell, even the woman customer played by Laurie Holden (*Fantastic Four*), who teams up with David, is strong and capable and genuine—so let’s call it not just real-masculinity but real-humanity.

 Brent Norton: Now listen people. We are experiencing some kind of disaster. I don't know whether it's man-made or natural, but I do know that it's definitely not supernatural. Or biblical. And no offense Mrs. Carmody, but the only way we're going to help ourselves is to seek rescue. We're going out.
David Drayton: Brent, look...
Brent Norton: I'm not discussing this any further.
David Drayton: I know. I just want to ask a favor.
[grabs some rope]
David Drayton: Tie this around your waist.
Brent Norton: What for?
David Drayton: It'll let us know you at least got three hundred feet.

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David Drayton: Sure there's no way I can talk you out of this?
Brent Norton: David, there's nothing out there. Nothing in the mist.
David Drayton: What if you're wrong?
Brent Norton: Then, I guess... the joke will be on me after all.

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It’s impossible to guess quite what’s going on or quite how Darabont—who took some liberties with King’s material—can possibly resolve his story in a way that will completely gratify. But he does. How it ends... well, I couldn’t move from my seat, I was that blown away by the power of it. It’s absolutely right, exactly the kind of uncompromising kicker it needs to be to ensure that The Mist haunts you for a good long while with its shocking reminder of how we can be our own worst enemies in all ways imaginable.

Amanda Dunfrey: You don't have much faith in humanity, do you?
Dan Miller: None, whatsoever.
Amanda Dunfrey: I can't accept that. People are basically good; decent. My god, David, we're a civilized society.
David Drayton: 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.

The Mist is what a horror film should be—dark, tense, and punctuated by just enough gore to keep the viewer's flinch reflex intact. In fact, that movie's ending is so uncompromising that one must assume director Frank Darabont had final cut so the studio couldn't interfere. (It's worth noting that the ending is not the same as that of Stephen King's novella, but I won't mention how it has changed.)

Darabont has fashioned a tense motion pictures that's ultimately more about paranoia, religious fanaticism, and the price of hopelessness than it is about monsters. But the creatures are present and accounted for, lurking in the white-out that is the mist. Someone has finally succeeded where John Carpenter failed with The Fog.

Darabont, who was an established screenwriter before trying his hand at directing with 1994's The Shawshank Redemption, has made four motion pictures. The Mist is the third one that uses a Stephen King story as source material. Before The Mist, Darabont stuck to King's "straight" stories, but this time he takes a turn for the horrific. What he does right, however, is to focus more on the interplay between the characters than on the monsters.

By the end, one wonders which group is more savage: us or them. Darabont's theme in some ways echoes a sentiment voiced by Ellen Ripley in Aliens: that human beings can be as bad or worse than the nightmares that sometimes hunt them. (The movie borrows other things from the Alien series, including the expulsion of creatures from the body and the cocooning of victims.)

The acting is smooth and believable by all parties: Thomas Jane is his usual cool self. Toby Jones steals most of the scenes he is in. Speaking of scene stealers—Francis Sterhagen steals a number of them as she did years ago in a Sean Connery movie called Outland. She may be best remembered as Cliff Clavin’s mother in Cheers.

It was nice to see a lot of character actors getting enough screen time to show their chops: Jeffery DeMunn (Law & Order as Norman Rothenberg (8 episodes, 1993-2005)) and William Sandler (Col . Stuart, Die Hard 2) to name two. Marcia Gay Harden may very well get a nod for best supporting actress when the Oscar season rolls around.

The special effects are both a strength and a weakness. They are effective when portraying monsters seen through the gloom of the mist. (There's one horrific and awe-inspiring moment late in the movie.) When seen a little closer and clearer, however, the CGI is too apparent. Atmosphere is Darabont's strength. It's what drives the movie—wondering and fearing what might be out there, preparing to launch itself at the huge plate glass windows that front a supermarket. Using ingredients supplied by King, the director brews a potent stew that concludes with a scene tinged with the most bitter irony imaginable. Or at least that’s How It Seemed from Where I Sat.

[last line]
David Drayton: [screaming into the mist] Come on!

What’s it worth?     
For horror film buffs: the price of the evening shows (you really should see this during daylight hours)
For the average viewer: You may want to wait for this on cable IF you ever think you’ll want to see it. It is a scary sumbitch.

 
ROLL CREDITS

Director: Frank Darabont
Screenplay: Frank Darabont,
Based on the novella by: Stephen King
Cinematography: Ronn Schmidt
Music: Mark Isham
CAST:
Thomas Jane--David Drayton
Nathan Gamble--Billy Drayton
Marcia Gay Harden--Mrs. Carmody
Laurie Holden--Amanda Dunfrey
Andre Braugher--Brent Norton
Toby Jones--Ollie Weeks
William Sadler--Jim Grondin
Jeffrey DeMunn--Dan Miller
Frances Sternhagen--Irene
Alexa Davalos--Sally
Chris Owen--Norm
Sam Witwer--Wayne Jessup
Robert C. Treveiler--Bud Brown
David Jensen--Myron
Jack Hurst--Joe Eagleton

 
FADE TO BLACK
In The Name Of Truth, Justice and In the Service of A Higher Good, I Remain Your Friend, Movie Reviewer and Spiritual Advisor, Coach Patton

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