The Mist

(2007) ****

Irene Reppler: You'd think educating children would be more of a priority in this country. But you'd be wrong. Government's got better things to spend our money on.

David Drayton drives with his son and his neighbor to the supermarket to get supplies after a terrific electrical storm knocks out the power all over town. As they're standing in a long checkout line, several emergency vehicles barrel past the store. A panicked and bleeding Dan Miller races into the store shouting about "something in the mist." Seconds later it comes, massive, billowing over the parking lot and as far as the eye can see. A man panics and races from the store to his car. Unseen in the gloom, he lets out an awful scream. The doors are shut and everyone stands, shielded weakly behind plate glass windows.


Not long after, the generator starts to puff noxious fumes. Norm, the stockboy volunteers to go outside to clear the vent. Through the crack in the loading door, something reaches in and does this to him, and then pulls him out into the soup.


Only a handful of the trapped are unfortunate enough to be there to see it happen, and when question is raised about the validity of their story, the trapped begin to split into three factions. There's a faction who believe that there is an awful threat in the mist who want to stay inside. There's a faction who believe that there's nothing in the mist and want to leave the store to find rescue. Then there's a faction -- only a single voice at first, but growing rapidly in number as the situation becomes ever more dire -- that believe that there is something out there, and that it is the End of Days.


Horror movies about people trapped together tend to fall into two storyline ruts -- there's power-struggle, then there's religious zealotry. I mean, I don't deny that these are the exact sorts of things people would argue about if there were monsters trying to knock down the front door. But still, it's so easy to make your movie become entirely about that, and why do I want to sit here watching a movie about people yelling at each other? I could just turn off the TV and listen to my neighbors upstairs.


Oddly, the Mist falls squarely into both of these ruts at the same time, but the writing and directing are good enough that it's not a drag on the movie at all. Talking with Johnny Sweatpants after watching the movie, he compared the situation to The Monsters are Due on Maple Street -- the Twilight Zone episode in which residents on a suburban street whip themselves into a frenzy when their electricity gets shut off one night. It turns out that, while these homeowners are killing each other because of perceived threats, there's an *actual* threat causing all of it, of which the townspeople are unaware.

In the Mist though, the townspeople are eventually very much aware of the threat. And when you see what the threat actually is, the argument over whether or not the Lord has come to prune us isn't so far-fetched. If you've ever read any HP Lovecraft, whose stories are populated by beings from places whar things ain't as they is here, you've probably got a pretty good idea of what the threat is like.

We see a small example of the the threat getting ground under this shoe here, but it comes in a wide range of forms and sizes -- as we begin to see larger and larger creatures, we begin to wonder, just how big do these things get? Pret-ty fucking big, it turns out.


The Mist was directed by Frank Darabont. Darabont also directed the Shawshank Redemption (also by Stephen King), which currently sits in the very top spot on the IMDb's highest rated list. He also directed King's Green Mile. Kind of makes you wish that Darabont had directed more Stephen King, doesn't it?