#631 – The Mist (2007)

The Mist (2007)

Film review #631

Director: Frank Darabont

SYNOPSIS: After a storm causes significant damage in a rural town in Maine, David Drayton takes his son and neighbour to a nearby supermarket for supplies. While there, a strange mist covers the building, and strange creatures lurk outside ready to kill anyone that leaves. The people trapped within the supermarket have to figure out how they are to survive both the monsters outside and the people within…

THOUGHTS/ANALYSIS: The Mist is a 2007 film based on the novel of the same name by Stephen King. The premise of the film is quite simple: after a storm rips through a rural town in Maine, David heads with his son and neighbour to a supermarket to get supplies. While there, a strange mist covers the whole town, and anyone who leaves to go out into it is killed by something lurking within. The people trapped within must band together and survive, but cracks begin to show when different people have different ideas about the situation. As the film progresses, you get a clearer sense of the horror lurking beyond the mist, but it never gets less terrifying. The film works best as a typical horror film: a good mix of gore, tension and scares that are well-paced throughout the two hour runtime. It explores its setting well, and the possibilities that could arise from it.

The weaker part of the film is the characters: while they are a large and diverse cast, nobody really has much development, and play very specific roles, David as the lead is fairly plain, and while his background is explored in the introduction, it doesn’t really offer a unique angle to be developed for the rest of the film (but I suppose your life story or job don’t really matter much when you’re trapped in a supermarket with monsters outside). The conflict that emerges between different characters obviously tries to delve into the psychological reality of the situation and how different people react under the pressure and terror of the unknown, and it doesn’t quite hit the mark. The preacher that obviously becomes the main antagonist that sees the mist as a punishment from God overpowers every scene and development by having some explanation for it, and doesn’t really give much space for anything else. I get that it’s meant to showcase the political divisiveness of its setting and how fear makes people turn against one another, but it just feels like it flattens any nuance or complexity.

The thing that perhaps polarises viewers the most is the ending: a twist that is so nihilistic that either undoes the films journey, or expertly concludes it, depending on which side you fall on to. regardless, you’ll definitely have some thoughts about it. Stephen King himself thought it was brilliant and better than the one he wrote for the novel, which was left open-ended. Personally, I didn’t know what to think about it: perhaps it needed a better performance from the lead actor to showcase his emotions to have a better impact for me. But again, it’s something you’ll have to form an opinion on yourself.

Overall, The Mist is a fairly solid horror film that has plenty going for it in terms of gore, tension and scares. It misses the mark a little in terms of character development, and being unable to dive further into the psychological terror the cast is facing due to the suffocating presence of the one the film chooses to focus on, but yeah, it’s a pretty decent horror.