I think that a good movie is movie that you won’t forget
right after you just stepped out of the cinema. And if the movie is able
to make you wonder, even for a moment, how you would react in a situation similar
to the one described in the screenplay, than I can say is an excellent film.
According to those criteria, The Mist, the screen adaptation
of a short story written by Stephen King in the 80s, is a real success and if
you agree with me, then The Mist will totally worth your time.
To characterize Darabont’s movie as a horror movie is just too
simple unfair, although the fans of the genre will be delighted by the story
and the special effects.
Of course, The Mist is crawling with monsters and special effects,
but the movie is not just another Alien with unworldly creatures that are hidden
in the fog, slashing and ripping the good people of a small town in Maine County.
The Mist is about the dividing power of fear, about
alienation and about how our ugliest demons are creeping into our misty souls
when we are afraid.
A father, David Drayton (Thomas Jane), and his young son Billy
(Nathan Gamble), their neighbor (Andre Braugher), a schoolteacher (Laurie
Holden), a religious fanatic, Miss Carmody, (Marcia Gay Harden) and a soldier
(Sam Witwer) are trapped inside a grocery store and they have to deal with the creatures
that entered through an inter-dimensional rift, which may or may not have been
caused by a nearby military base.
The King’s story is for Darabont just a reason to analyze
the human nature as The Mist is more of an essay about the deep visceral fear,
which is capable to abolish your senses and is ripping you off of all emotions.
The Mist is a cinematographic portray of the fear as a primitive emotion, the
fear that is capable to make you think and do things that you normally wouldn’t
even dream about.
How our good people will react when facing an unknown
danger? Will they try to rationalize their fears and fight against them as
David Drayton is trying to convince them?
Or they will simply assume they are facing a vengeful God,
who tries to punish them, as suggested by the fanatical Miss Carmody?
I won’t reveal too much about the twists of the plot, nor
about the ending of the story, which is different from the original ending.
Frank Darabont, who already directed other two screen adaptations
of King’s novel, “The Shawshank Redemption" and "The Green Mile",
has decided to change the end of the movie. Instead of King’s open-end,
Darabont has chosen to twist the story once more and I won’t disclose it, but I
will give just a hint. Did you ever wonder what things are we capable to do just
to escape our fears?
The Mist
Release Date: Nov 21, 2007; Rated: R; Length: 127 Minutes;
Genre: Horror;
With: Marcia Gay Harden and Thomas Jane
