"The Mist"

It would be fair to say that when previews for "The Mist" started hitting movie and television screens, I was weary. Having never read the novella by Stephen King, I foolishly made the assumption that "The Mist" was just a two-bit rip-off of the John Carpenter shocker "The Fog." I mean, be fair...fog looks a lot like mist, and mist looks a lot like fog. And they both look a lot like smoke. And smoke looks a hell of a lot like smog. And any one of them could contain Pirate ghosts.

Boy, was I wrong about that fog thing.
"The Mist" is as far from Carpenter’s "The Fog" as you can possibly get.

The basic story is as simple as horror itself, and it’s been time tested in numerous classics such as "Night of the Living Dead," "The Birds," "Alien," and "Storm of the Century." Monsters are out there. So put some really scared, paranoid, confused, and self-obsessed people in a house/store/room with an outside threat looming over them, and they will always:

A) Block all the doors & windows with whatever is available including sand bags, loose doors, boards, and duct tape.
and
B) Turn on eachother...quickly.

So yeah, King didn’t invent the premise but what he does, with the help of "Shawshank Redemption" director Frank Darabont, is create a palpable sense of dread throughout the entire running time. There’s something primally frightening about not being able to see ten feet in front of you. There’s something primally frightening about being at the mercy of some sick and twisted sense of godlessness. And there’s something really really primally frightening about spiders. "The Mist" has all three. In healthy doses.

Marcia Gay Harden turns in a sinfully bitchy and brilliant performance as the local Evangelist who believes the creatures in the mist are the work of an angry God. She seems crazy, until halfway through the film when the locusts come, and we start to think she might be right.
"The Mist" also holds it’s fair share of classic scares and gore. There are quite a few "jump out and go Boo!" moments. The bloodshed is never pornographic as has been the trend in the "Saw" and "Hostel" series, but it’s definitely enough to "get under your skin..." and then rip you apart.

There are also a few "wink wink" moments that true horror completists will appreciate. In the opening scene where Thomas Jane’s main character is painting movie posters, his collection includes the posters for John Carpenter’s remake of "The Thing," Guillermo Del Toro’s beautifully disturbing "Pan’s Labyrinth," and Stephen King’s "Dark Tower" series. All of which were actually done by the greatest movie poster artist to ever live, Drew Struzen. God, I love it when directors reference other horror directors.

But perhaps "The Mist’s" best moment is towards the end, when the small group of level-headed townspeople attempt to escape. They are stopped in their tracks, in awe of a gigantic quadripedal creature that is heavy on tentacles. We don’t completely see the monster. There are no words, no dialogue...only quiet mood music and the bellows of the creature. In that moment, we understand what the characters understand: There is no God, no hope, no way out, and human beings are no longer at the top of the biological chain. In that moment, hope is completely gone and despair takes it’s place. How does it feel to be at the mercy of a shadowy, disturbing, and ultimately vengeful "new God"?
And best part of all? The creature seems to be heavily inspired by the work of H.P. Lovecraft’s "Call of Cthulu." Lovecraft always played with the idea of other-dimensional creatures that held power over humanity and could snuff it out at any moment. "The Mist" takes this idea, and attaches some wings and stingers. And it all works.

If nothing else, "The Mist" is worth watching if only for the shockingly bleak ending. It’s so anti-happy ending, so depressing, so upsetting, that you’ll sit there in silence for spans of time after the credits are done rolling. It’s a true "Oh Shit" moment...and so few movies have those anymore.

Stephen King himself once said something that exemplifies his simple vision for writing and terrifying: "I just try to create sympathy for my characters, and then I unleash the monsters on them."
"The Mist" definitely understands this concept. It’s one of the best, darkest, and most gripping horror movies to come out in the past eight years.