Review: The Mist

In 1985, Stephen King published a collection of short stories and novellas called Skeleton Crew, the first and longest story of which is called "The Mist." It should be mentioned that "The Mist" was published five years prior in an anthology called Dark Forces, but that's beside the point because now, twenty-two years later, we have a movie version screening in mass release across the country.

Now, I'm a guy who likes me some Stephen King. I've read a great deal of his novels (though certainly not all of them), and seen most of the movies based on his books. It's a trend for me to not like the movies too much when they're based on King's more frightful novels. In cases where King's source material is more akin drama, I typically enjoy the movie. For instance, I didn't like Carrie or Misery, or even Kubrick's The Shining, but The Shawshank Redemption and Stand By Me (based respectively off of the novellas "Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption" and "The Body") are both somewhere on my top 50.

Directing The Mist is a man who's had some experience working with the kind of Stephen King movies I like. Frank Darabont directed The Shawshank Redemption back in 1994 and then The Green Mile in 1999, and both were movies I enjoyed. The Mist, however, is the first actual horror film based on King's work that he's directed, unless you count The Woman in the Room (1983), a television program that was part of a larger collection of King's horror stories. I had my doubts. Especially since The Mist has a lot of monsters in it and material that seems corny when taken outside the perspective of King's The Dark Tower series.

I was pleasantly surprised. The movie focuses enough on the human aspect of fear to allow for some monsters without feeling too cheesy. The story is actually about our perceptions of death and fear, and how they affect us, as well as how people can influence one another by emotion alone. Much potential corniness is done away with by underplaying everything.

The acting here is superb all around, but a special shout-out goes to Marcia Gay Harden as the demented Mrs. Carmody. An imbalanced Bible-thumper, she believes that the mist which has overcome the ordinarily cozy outpost of Castle Rock, Maine, is actually God's hand in the end-time. She begins preaching to the marooned crowd of shoppers, and, after they've seen enough to believe, they begin to follow her. She believes she is God's vessel for their salvation, and the group eats it right up.

The cinematography is fresh and interesting, with a great deal of subtle, but noticeable, quick zooms and pull backs. The camera is constantly moving, and handheld most of the time. It gives the audience the feeling like they're there in the mist as well.

The mist itself serves as a symbol of the unknown, and death, and this tale has more to it than just tentacled monsters and a few good frights. It's a good thing Frank Darabont got ahold of this story, and not someone else.

I didn't like the ending at all, but I don't have much room for complaint, since I didn't write the damn thing, but it still is the only thing that counts against what would ordinarily be a perfect score. I give The Mist an 8/10.

Edit: I am upping my score on The Mist to a 9. Retrospect shows that I actually really liked the ending, just not the way it made me feel. That's the tough thing about true tragedy, isn't it? It's the best way the movie could have ended, but it doesn't make you feel too warm and fuzzy.