Not Coming to a Theater Near You

The Mist / Stephen King’s The Mist / USA / 2007

The Mist is director Frank Darabont’s first feature film since his 2001 effort The Majestic, and it’s nothing if not a change of pace. While The Majestic strains for feel-good uplift with the kind of earnestness that compels critics to spit the term “Capraesque” like a cruel epithet, The Mist is a resolutely feel-bad picture, as dour a film as anyone is likely to find at the local multiplex this holiday season. Darabont once again adapts Stephen King, having previously earned Oscar plaudits for The Shawshank Redemption and The Green Mile. But don’t look for The Mist to be rounding out any sort of inspirational trilogy with those two films: it doesn’t share their rather determined faith in humanity, nor does it aspire to project the requisite high-mindedness of an Academy-baiting autumn release.

The Mist is Stephen King proper, full of monsters from another world and oozing entrails. Poster artwork for John Carpenter’s 1982 remake of The Thing can be glimpsed in the studio of our hero, David Drayton, early on, and it feels like a mission statement for the whole film. This is a creature feature that’s refreshingly proud to be just that.

As a horror flick, it ain’t bad. Thomas Jane is fine as Drayton, though better when he avoids action man posturing and lets the character’s vulnerability shine through, and Toby Jones is even better as Ollie, the diminutive grocery clerk who happens to be a crack shot. KNB Effects Group, the reliable firm behind a million convincing monsters and wounds (my favorite being the hole through Quentin Tarantino’s hand in From Dusk Till Dawn), do strong work as usual, and the standard jump-in-your-seat moments are there. Darabont also allows for a few moments of quieter, effective creepiness, particularly when a group of characters fade entirely out of view while trying to find their way through the titular mist. It’s true that some of the CGI monsters are too slick to be believed, but that isn’t a new complaint.

The real sticking point comes with Marcia Gay Harden’s shrill, one-note character Mrs. Carmody, a religious fanatic who gets more than one fire-and-brimstone speech too many. More distressing than the amount of screen time given to the irritating and caricatured Mrs. Carmody are the pains that the film takes to never really disprove her ravings. Marked by a surprising conservative streak, The Mist reserves the worst punishments for the unbelievers.

by Victoria Large | Source: 35MM Print
02 Dec 2007 12:27 PM | Submit Comment