2007’s The Mist fascinates me for a few reasons, and a key one is how the monstrous behavior of creatures from another dimension is just slightly worse than that of some of our fellow human beings. A crisis which initially brings together even people who don’t normally like each other will be exploited by one person into something horrific. What appears to be a rather simple horror film instead becomes a parable showing how fragile civility really is. It’s why there is a phrase concerning the thin veneer of civilization, but nobody calls it the solid oak of civilization. As Toby Jones tells Laurie Holden at one point, the modern works as long as “the machines are working and you can dial 911. Take those things away, throw people in the dark, you scare the shit out of them. No more rules.”
The characters trapped in a supermarket have good reason to be afraid, and that is because the mist which has enveloped the shopping center has creatures lurking in it of the likes no human has seen before. The closest thing to any real creature of which I’m aware are spiders the size of large dogs, which shoot out web which is acidic enough to burn through linoleum. You can imagine what it does to flesh. If that brings to mind the xenomorphs from the Alien series, these things also use living humans as incubators for its young.
The first warning of the coming invasion is tornado sirens sounding as the mist rolls in across the parking lot. A bloodied Jeffrey DeMunn is just ahead of the cloud when he runs in screaming about “there’s something in the mist!” I was reminded a bit of the scene that should be the end of the original Invasion of the Body Snatchers, where Kevin McCarthy is impotently shouting about the coming invasion of the pod people as trucks full of the pods drive past him.
Marcia Gay Harden seems to be first to believe DeMunn, as she looks through the windows that are the entire front of the store and marvels, “It’s death”. And she is happy this seems to be the coming apocalypse for which she has clearly waited her entire life, her being the kind of Christian whose Bible might as well have only the Old Testament before skipping to the Book of Revelations. Soon, this woman who was previously dismissed by the locals as a kook will have a sizeable following which demands blood sacrifice. Such is the nature of fear on otherwise normally healthy minds.
I suspect the newcomers and seasonal visitors also regard her with suspicion. I don’t believe we hear Andre Braugher’s opinion on that, but he outraged by what he considers to a hoax staged by the locals. That seems odd, given how unlikely it is they could somehow go to the trouble of enshrouding an entire building in fog just to prank one big city lawyer. He definitely doesn’t believe neighbor Thomas Jane’s claims that something with huge, clawed tentacles tried to enter the service bay, taking with it a bagboy. There’s even the severed tip of a tentacle still in the bay but Jane can’t convince Braugher to see it. I can understand being overwhelmed by a situation like this and unable to process, but I like how the script addresses people who will go into denial when the evidence is all around them.
In the first night in the market, giant bugs arrive, attracted to the light. These are like something I can imagine from a prehistoric era. Then giant bird-like creatures arrive, preying on those. It is inevitable the store’s glass front will be penetrated, leading to a solid action sequence inside the store involving nightmarish creatures being fought off with mops turned into torches as well as the sole gun available. The bird creatures look, frankly, a bit goofy and not unlike the regrettable monster in 50’s sci-fi flic The Giant Claw.
It is episodes like this that terrify some into joining Harden’s little pop-up apocalyptic cult (apopuplyptic?). It is inevitable a literal scapegoat will be designated, and that will be one of the military men after it is discovered the secret installation nearby had opened a portal to another dimension through which the invaders entered our world. Harden’s spiel before the sacrifice touches on some of the anti-science sentiment which I feel is a bit part of that mindset: “We’re being punished for going against the will of God. Walking on the moon. Splitting his atoms. Stem cells. Abortion. Stealing the secrets of life only He had the right to.” In addition to having a wrathful spirit, her kind also revels into perceived persecution against them. Consider this exchange between Jane and Harden when she and her followers block him and a handful of friends from leaving the store: “Noone’s interfered with you. We’re only asking for the same privilege.” “It is these people who brought this upon us, people who refused to bend to the will of God and claim it privilege. They mock us! They mock our God, our lifestyle, our piousness.”
All of the roles are perfectly cast though, admittedly, Jane pushes the histrionics a bit too far in some moments. Still, in the most extreme moments, it is hard to fault him for that. I know that, in the same situation, I would folded like a cheap card table long before him. The interaction with Nathan Gamble, as his young son, is especially heartbreaking. Parents are always having to convince their kids the monsters in closets and under beds aren’t real, which makes it all the more difficult to protect them when it turns out monsters are real. Gamble gets one like which pressed my heart with its thumbs, and that it when he says to his father, “Promise you won’t let the monsters get me.”
Harden is superb in the role of the kind of villainy an actor loves to sink their teeth into. The other female lead is Laurie Holden, who is given comparatively little to do. Alexa Davalos is a cashier in a brief appearance which is a large step backwards from her significant contributions to The Chronicles of Riddick. Of the remaining cast, the truly stellar performance is Jones, a natural leader who is not a designated one in day-to-day life. He is an expert shot without even his manager and co-workers being aware of the fact. He helps to defuse situations, such as calming Jane when two guys get belligerent over an issue with the generator, saying those guys are scared and now they have a problem they can solve.
Unlike the Stephen King novella upon which this is based, this film adaptation comes to a definite conclusion. It is also an exceptionally bleak ending, of the likes I am stunned survived the studio system. That likely happened because Frank Durabont writes and directs, and he had done right by King and the studios with The Shawshank Redemption and The Green Mile. Typical of such King translations to the screen, there are some easter eggs, such as the movie poster Jane’s artist was working on one apparently for The Dark Tower. It is better artwork that the film which was made of that. When the painting is destroyed in a storm the night before, he laments the studio commissioning it would be less likely to extend the deadline than they would just hire home hack to whip up something in Photoshop, something with “two giant heads”.
I watched The Mist as the black and white version, the only time I time I believe a color film has been improved by that treatment. It gives the movie a vibe akin to Night of the Living Dead through most of its runtime. More importantly, the CGI monsters appear better in this format, effects which have not dated well and weren’t even that impressive in the picture’s original theatrical run. I can imagine I will watched the movie again at least once more and, if I do, it will be the black and white version.
Dir: Frank Darabont
Starring Thomas Jane, Marcia Gay Harden
Watched on 4K UHD blu-ray