‘As a species we’re fundamentally insane…’
More than perhaps any other Stephen King story, The Mist wears its influences on its sleeve. John Carpenter’s The Fog, Alien, King’s own Storm of the Century, Dawn of the Dead, even Lord of the Flies and the writing of H.P. Lovecraft – all of these disparate elements combine to create something quite brilliant. The addition of regular King collaborator Frank Darabont (The Green Mile, Shawshank Redemption) caps things off nicely even if The Mist has little in common thematically with either of those movies…
When a mysterious mist envelops a small American town following a freak storm, a group of survivors find shelter in the local supermarket. David Drayton (Thomas Jane) attempts to force the townsfolk to face reality, but they soon fall under the spell of local religious nut Mrs. Carmody (Marcia Gay Harden).
Despite pulling from a number of well established horror films and novels, The Mist is very much its own thing. Darabont, working from his own screenplay, draws heavily on the original prose (as he did for both Shawshank and The Green Mile) with one crucial difference… he changes the ending. The result is one of the most memorable and devastating conclusions in the history of horror. If you’ve never seen it, stop reading this shit right now and go watch it. It really is astonishing.
It is also worth noting how good the eclectic cast are here. Jane takes a while to get going, but he is vital in selling the harrowing final scenes, Harden is suitably loathsome as the antagonist and Toby Jones is reliable as ever as supermarket worker Ollie Weeks. As ever, King’s work is as its most powerful when it is an examination of small town America. The Mist is an allegory for how society deals with crisis and stands as a stark reminder that the human race will never thrive whilst fractured and apart. But also, it’s just a really great monster movie.
Darabont’s final feature film (there is no sign of another on the horizon) will always trail in the wake of his other two King adaptations, but The Mist is a fine horror film and one that perhaps deserves to be remembered with more fondness.