Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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56 of 67 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Darabont delivers again, 21 Jul 2008
Acclaimed director Frank Darabont (The Shawshank redemption, the green mile,) adapts his third Stephen king novel for the big screen in the form of the Mist. An unsettling film giving an unflinching view on just how far people will go when pushed.
The film follows the story of David (Thomas Jane) and his son Billy, what starts out as a normal day quickly descends into a nightmare, following a savage storm many residents of the small town flock to the local supermarket to stock up on supplies when a strange mist descends upon the town, warned of things attacking people in the mist the customers in the store barricade themselves in, fear and paranoia run rife when the store is attacked by monsters this is only worsened Mrs. Carmody who preaches that they are being punished by a vengeful god as things become increasingly more desperate the survivors take sides as they begin to turn on one another.
The Mist is a chilling thrill ride focusing heavily on its characters, the human horror is amped up as if highlights the deteriorating morals of the people in the store as sacrifice and murder become a way of life. The characters are fleshed out well we see what drives them and how they handle the increasing pressure around them some rise to the challenge as others fall to pieces. While the mist holds bizarre creatures the real monsters of the piece become apparent inside the store.
The human horror is offset with violent set-pieces, skilfully directed and always edge of your seat stuff, as the store comes under attack from the monsters. The graphic violence is used sparsely throughout the film so when it it used it is done so to great effect, there is of course the traditional horror traps that the mist falls into as survivors venture down dark hallways and out into the Mist but good reasoning behind the ideas of venturing out saves the characters from idiocy which some horror movies fail to do.
At a little over two hours the Mist flies by if anything it's too short, the story culminates with an ending that will shock and deeply disturb and stay with you after the film has ended, the cast do brilliant jobs in their roles, in particular Thomas Jane, who gives an outstanding performance. The special effects are pretty good and the psychological horror intertwined with the gory aspects makes a seamless combination.
Very much a character driven horror film ( a dieing rarity), the mist delivers beyond expectations creating a startling view of human nature whilst remaining an absorbing film throughout. The best horror of 2008 is right here. essential viewing
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8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Horror the way it should be., 23 Feb 2009
Firstly, with all due respect to some other reviewers, I wouldn't listen to anyone who has given this film one star because of the ending. The ending is agonising but perfect as it is, and has the seal of approval from Stephen King himself who said the only thing wrong with it is that he didn't think of it first.
Put simply, Darabont is a master storyteller and that's why his SK adaptations all work so well, because they both have this way of making you care about their characters. In The Mist, the creatures aren't really the point. Okay, they're not going to win any special effects awards, but to knock a star off for that is putting style above substance.
Like the SK short story, The Mist is set largely in a small-town supermarket under seige by nameless other-dimensional monsters released by a military experiment gone wrong, and who prowl the mist outside. Amongst the trapped customers is a graphic artist (with his young son in tow) deserate to get home to rescue his wife, along with soldiers and assorted colourful town characters. Each of the characters is well drawn, and heroes lurk in suprising places. As the situation gets more desperate, barriers break down, and the reality of human nature begins to show.
The film draws you into the supermarket and makes you feel trapped there in a way reminsicent of (but more claustrophobic than) the shopping mall in Dawn of the Dead. By the time the terrifying religious zealot Mrs Carmody gets really crazy, the tension has been cranked up to the point where you're desperate for the sane ones to break out.
I haven't enjoyed a horror film like this for long time, and it's miles above all the grindhouse rubbish that keeps getting churned out lately. This is old-fashioned suspense horror at it's best - it might not leave you with a happy Hollywood glow but it'll stay with you for ages.
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16 of 19 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
It's "Lord of the Flies" with Cool Monsters in it!, 24 Dec 2008
This is a little gem of a film and if five stars seems excessive for what is basically a B-movie and an umpteenth Stephen King adaptation, well, maybe I'm just jaded with sado-porn ("Saw", "Hostel", et al.) and applaud "The Mist" for its back-to-basics ethos.
All of which makes "The Mist" sound like a cult novelty, but in fact it has a great pedigree. The story was a Stephen King novella, occupying the first 150-odd pages of Skeleton Crew (arguably, the last truly classic thing King has written). Director and screenwriter Frank Darabont has had a pretty fruitful relationship with King, turning out The Shawshank Redemption [1995](adapted from King's Different Seasons) and The Green Mile [2000]. Darabont has a great feel for King's tone and concerns and clearly takes an impish delight in the conventions of the traditional popcorn monster-movie - he even tried to have the film made in B&W to capture the tone more fully but you'll need to shell out for the 2-disc set if you want to see that.
A labour of love, then, and very much a film steeped in King's old school horror sentiments, rather old-fashioned by today's eyeball-severing standards. It could easily become lazy and self-indulgent, an in-joke for King afficionados. Thankfully, Darabont is too skilled for that and produces a tightly scripted, deeply unsettling movie of relentless menace and engaging humanity.
As with most of King's tales, the humans here are the real monsters. Trapping a bunch of New England townsfolk in a supermarket as the otherworldly mist rolls in creates the sort of all-American microcosm that generates significant tensions all by itself: arrogant city slickers versus blue collar locals; uneducated rustics versus middle class intellectuals; religious zealots versus sceptics... As with William Golding's Lord of the Flies, this is a tinderbox ready to ignite and the spark is provided by fear and isolation. The monsters are almost an afterthought and Darabont wisely keeps them off-camera and out-of-sight for most of the movie: writhing tentacles here, malevolent shadows there, then bugs and spiders, bugs and spiders everywhere!
Thomas Jane is engaging and stoical as the lantern jawed hero (another of King's improbable artist-outsiders who keep their heads when trained soldiers are losing theirs) but Laurie Holden feels somewhat underused as the female lead. Possibly they're just both utterly overshadowed by Marcia Gay Harden's despicable villainess, Mrs Carmody. A local nutjob and noisy God-botherer, the film deals unflinchingly with her ascent to power and influence as the sane and settled values of her neighbours collapse around them. Intriguingly, Carmody is clearly mentally ill, rather than just "overly religious", but Darabont keenly traces the psychological momentum behind cult and sacrifice: many of these scenes will linger with viewers long after the monsters are forgotten.
Not that I would disparage the monsters or the minor characters. All are well-realised and vividly constructed in broad brush strokes. Remember how Peter Jackson wasted an hour in King Kong [2005] trying to get us to care about his shipful of victims? Darabont achieves more in 10 minutes and his monsters, for all they're mist-veiled, feel _bigger_ than "Kong"'s fake dinosaurs. The "good" humans are sympathetic and shrewdly observed (Toby Jones' Ollie Weeks turns out to be the surprise hero; Frances Sternhagen's crotchety schoolteacher is a pillar of moral fortitude) but even the "baddies" have their own logic and tragic inner life, Andre Braugher's chip-on-the-shoulder neighbour and William Sadler's screw-loose mechanic deserving particular menton.
The ending, of course, is surprising and shocking and I'll not dwell on it too much except to point out that here, as in many other artful departures from King's original narrative, Darabont drives home the film's big theme: the influence of faith and the atrocities that spring from despair.
Not just your average monsters-in-the-mist horror film; this will have you debating the "what ifs" and the "if onlys" long after the closing credits. In fact, you'll just want to start over from the beginning and watch it through again. And that's just what I did!
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