2007 dir. Frank Darabont
The Mist was on my top 10 movie list for 2007. Unfortunately, not many people gave it a chance- due in part to the misleading trailer (which led everyone to think it was The Fog remake part II) and the reviews that dwelt on the downer ending. Speaking of which, I want to get this out of the way right now, the ending will wreck you. It will not make you feel good about things afterwards; it will haunt you. It goes to a surprisingly dark place for a studio film. The ending is great; the journey is just as brilliant.
The Mist takes place in Bridgton, Maine. After a big storm that tears up the town, an ominous mist starts rolling across the lake. Our hero, David Drayton (played by the underrated Thomas Jane), his son (Nathan Gamble), and his estranged neighbor (played by Andre Braugher who does a superb job) go to the grocery store for supplies. The electricity is out so the lines are long. Out of nowhere an old man with a bloody nose comes running into the store screaming about something in the mist. The mist has already reached the parking lot and is quickly engulfing everything in sight. One dude runs out to his sweet El Camino just as the mist envelopes him. They quickly close the doors to the store, but no one knows what’s going on. It’s just a thick eerie mist, what could be so dangerous about that?
So everyone is trapped in a grocery store for an undetermined amount of time. It could be worse, at least there’s plenty of non perishable food and warm beer. The great thing about this movie is that all the characters are so well fleshed out. Obviously we’re going to side with the protagonist, but we can relate to most everyone else’s choices- no matter how foolhardy. We have the religious zealot you love to hate played perfectly by Marcia Gay Harden, the seemingly meek store clerk played by Toby Jones (you might have seen him as Truman Capote in “Infamous”- the other awesome Capote movie that no one saw), a big city lawyer and typical “out of towner,” a Christian biker, three young soldiers about to go to war, a sharp-as-a-tack old lady, two mechanic rednecks, and about a dozen other minor characters that are all equally integral to the film.
I hate hate hate it when they put religious zealots in a movie just so everyone can hate on them. I think it’s cheap and lazy to put a character like that in for no real purpose other than to let the audience laugh at them. I will let it pass this one time because Marcia Gay Harden totally pulls it off. She’s very commanding in this performance.
The movie is a great character piece that focuses on group mentality- but even better than that, it has monsters! And not just any monsters, Lovecraftian1 monsters! Tentacles with claws that will rip the skin off your bones, bat like beasts with stingers full of poison, spiders from hell that can shoot webbing that acts like acid, and something that’s so crazy I won’t mention it. I don’t want to risk ruining it for you.
The movie deviates from the novella2 considerably, thank goodness. I had a lot of problems with the original story and apparently Frank Darabont felt similarly. All the problems with the original text are gone for the movie. He’s really the only person, except for Stanley Kubrick, that’s been able to properly adapt Stephen King’s work to the big screen. Shawshank Redemption is already a timeless classic. I didn’t think that King’s monster stories could be adapted, but Darabont has proven me wrong.
The 2 disc DVD includes a black and white version of the film. The Mist was actually originally meant to be shot in black and white. Frank Darabont cites the Coen Brothers’ “The Man Who Wasn’t There.” They shot in color because all the studio contracts stated that the film must be shot in color, but they didn’t state that it had to be released in color. They timed it for black and white and it looked great. Nowadays the big studio contracts say you must release the film in color, but thankfully DVD is here and we get to see the original vision of the film. I know what you’re thinking. “Why don’t I just turn the color off on my TV?” You could do that, but it will look bland and Frank Darabont will think you’re an idiot. This looks just as good as the new Blade Runner release. The blacks are blacker than sin. The contrast is beautiful. It really does make a huge difference in the viewing experience. The blood is jet black too so maybe it will make the more squeamish viewers able to sit through that easier. It actually comes across as more impactful to me. I haven’t figured out why that is though. I’ll be introducing this film to as many people as I can, but I don’t believe I’ll ever let them see the color version with me.
Jesse Wayne
1. H. P. Lovecraft, horror writer, is best known for his gruesome monsters and weird fiction
2. The Mist is a horror novella by Stephen King
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