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kv0925It's a REALLY foggy morning here, which reminds me that I'd meant to jot down another movie review: The Mist, from 2007.
It's based on a Stephen King novella by the same name, which I've read 2 or 3 times over the years and always very much enjoyed. The story revolves around a man named David Drayton, who lives with his wife and young son on a lake somewhere in Maine. After an intense and damaging thunderstorm rolls through one night, the Draytons wake up to downed trees and power lines, and a dense mist approaching from across the lake. David takes his son and their neighbor (Norton, a big-city lawyer with whom there's tension from a prior property dispute) into town to get some provisions. While they're at the grocery store, the mist rolls in and shrouds the town. A man runs into the grocery store, bloody and screaming, to warn them that there are THINGS in the Mist, THINGS that dragged off his friend.
And from there the movie becomes something of a political allegory, with differing factions: those who believe the situation is exactly as it appears and those who don't; those who want to venture out into the mist and those who don't; those who feel this is all the wrath of a vengeful God and those who don't want to be sacrificed, thankyouverymuch. Throw in the various creepy-crawly things populating the mist, and it's an interesting combination of monsters, both without and within.
The film is written and directed by Frank Darabont, who has made a pretty good career out of producing excellent adaptations of Stephen King stories: namely The Shawshank Redemption and The Green Mile, both of which I consider favorite films. The Mist has a much different feel, partly because it's more typical King horror fare than the others, and partly because of the filming style. In this one Darabont goes with a much more photojournalistic style, lots of handheld cameras with jump cuts and quick zooms. Similarly, the dialogue has a more mundane and unpolished tone, the things small-town Mainers might actually say to each other when trapped in a supermarket by unknown circumstances. It's not as bad as the wooden nonsense that filled Shyamalan's The Happening, but it definitely has a ham-handed feel at times. Similarly, the broad strokes used to paint some of the characters make them pretty one-dimensional too, like William Sadler as the truck-driving redneck type full of aw-shucks bravado until the situation is graphically made clear to him, or Marcia Gay Harden as the fire-and-brimstone evangelical who credits an angry God for the chaos and converts several in the store to her way of thinking through her sermonizing. On the other hand, Thomas Jane in the lead does a fine job, as does Laurie Holden as the young woman he befriends and Toby Jones as Ollie the store clerk. I was also impressed by Alexa Davalos as Sally the checkout girl, and had to rack my brain for a few minutes to figure out where I knew her from. The answer is Mob City, a television series currently underway about the mafia in L.A. in the 1940s or so--another Darabont-helmed project. He's pretty big on reusing his favorite character actors, is Frank Darabont. :)
As a horror film, it doesn't utilize too many tacky horror tricks--the jump scares are few, and there's blood and guts but not over-the-top. In the novella the monsters of the mist are often left somewhat amorphous; in the movie they felt the need to give them a bit more form and substance, and it's pretty well-done, though I'd have to say some of the CGI looks a bit cheesy and dated even for 2007. Not too distracting, though.
Again not wanting to spoil anything for those who haven't seen it, but the ending of this film differs from the novella, and is a bit of a gut punch. As I understand it, Stephen King himself liked the movie ending better and said he wished he'd thought of it. I had to give the end of the novella a quick re-read to remind myself how it ended, and it actually did hint at the ending Darabont chose, but from there became much more ambiguous and unresolved. There's a resolution in the film, but maybe not the one we wanted. How's that for a tease?
So anyway, to sum up I'd say The Mist is somewhat uneven in terms of style, dialogue and characterization, and really not up to the best of Frank Darabont's oeuvre--but still a pretty good ride for what it is, and I would say it does justice to King's novella. I give it a 44 on my arbitrary 64-point scale.
It's based on a Stephen King novella by the same name, which I've read 2 or 3 times over the years and always very much enjoyed. The story revolves around a man named David Drayton, who lives with his wife and young son on a lake somewhere in Maine. After an intense and damaging thunderstorm rolls through one night, the Draytons wake up to downed trees and power lines, and a dense mist approaching from across the lake. David takes his son and their neighbor (Norton, a big-city lawyer with whom there's tension from a prior property dispute) into town to get some provisions. While they're at the grocery store, the mist rolls in and shrouds the town. A man runs into the grocery store, bloody and screaming, to warn them that there are THINGS in the Mist, THINGS that dragged off his friend.
And from there the movie becomes something of a political allegory, with differing factions: those who believe the situation is exactly as it appears and those who don't; those who want to venture out into the mist and those who don't; those who feel this is all the wrath of a vengeful God and those who don't want to be sacrificed, thankyouverymuch. Throw in the various creepy-crawly things populating the mist, and it's an interesting combination of monsters, both without and within.
The film is written and directed by Frank Darabont, who has made a pretty good career out of producing excellent adaptations of Stephen King stories: namely The Shawshank Redemption and The Green Mile, both of which I consider favorite films. The Mist has a much different feel, partly because it's more typical King horror fare than the others, and partly because of the filming style. In this one Darabont goes with a much more photojournalistic style, lots of handheld cameras with jump cuts and quick zooms. Similarly, the dialogue has a more mundane and unpolished tone, the things small-town Mainers might actually say to each other when trapped in a supermarket by unknown circumstances. It's not as bad as the wooden nonsense that filled Shyamalan's The Happening, but it definitely has a ham-handed feel at times. Similarly, the broad strokes used to paint some of the characters make them pretty one-dimensional too, like William Sadler as the truck-driving redneck type full of aw-shucks bravado until the situation is graphically made clear to him, or Marcia Gay Harden as the fire-and-brimstone evangelical who credits an angry God for the chaos and converts several in the store to her way of thinking through her sermonizing. On the other hand, Thomas Jane in the lead does a fine job, as does Laurie Holden as the young woman he befriends and Toby Jones as Ollie the store clerk. I was also impressed by Alexa Davalos as Sally the checkout girl, and had to rack my brain for a few minutes to figure out where I knew her from. The answer is Mob City, a television series currently underway about the mafia in L.A. in the 1940s or so--another Darabont-helmed project. He's pretty big on reusing his favorite character actors, is Frank Darabont. :)
As a horror film, it doesn't utilize too many tacky horror tricks--the jump scares are few, and there's blood and guts but not over-the-top. In the novella the monsters of the mist are often left somewhat amorphous; in the movie they felt the need to give them a bit more form and substance, and it's pretty well-done, though I'd have to say some of the CGI looks a bit cheesy and dated even for 2007. Not too distracting, though.
Again not wanting to spoil anything for those who haven't seen it, but the ending of this film differs from the novella, and is a bit of a gut punch. As I understand it, Stephen King himself liked the movie ending better and said he wished he'd thought of it. I had to give the end of the novella a quick re-read to remind myself how it ended, and it actually did hint at the ending Darabont chose, but from there became much more ambiguous and unresolved. There's a resolution in the film, but maybe not the one we wanted. How's that for a tease?
So anyway, to sum up I'd say The Mist is somewhat uneven in terms of style, dialogue and characterization, and really not up to the best of Frank Darabont's oeuvre--but still a pretty good ride for what it is, and I would say it does justice to King's novella. I give it a 44 on my arbitrary 64-point scale.
