Cast: Thomas Jane, Marcia Gay Harden

Director: Frank Darabont

Screenplay: Frank Darabont

Running time: 2 hr 7 mins

Genre: Horror/Suspense



CRITIQUE:


Frank Darabont rammed home with multi-streak gold in his The Shawshank Redemption and The Green Mile, two classic weepies only broken by the unintentional saccharine sentimentality with the Jim Carrey starrer The Majestic. So when he announced that he’s adapting yet another Stephen King work, this one an all-out horror story, we’re holding for dear life that it won’t end up in the wrong side of the alloyed tracks. The Mist very nearly trips to conventional territory, local townsfolk trapped in a supermarket terrorised by an unseen external force and all goes madcap in some undomesticated antics, showcased in Romero’s Day of the Dead and other copycats in celluloid. But, like good horror films, Darabont doesn’t really give a shit about the horror outside (look at the awful CGI of monster tentacles and creepy-crawlies, thanks to the mist concealing the technical flaws), and instead zooms in shuddering hand-held to the monsters that lurk within the humans of this film. The titular mist spookily envelops the whole town (perhaps the world) and unleashes unseen hellish creatures. There are seat-gripping sequences; the flying insects attach on the supermarket windows, and the venture into the chilly pharmacy. And the cast is more than able; Thomas Jane, common to Stephen King character canon, plays the hero in standard class, but it’s Marcia Gay Harden’s religious, Bible-verse-spitting extremist that takes centre stage, preaching for a vengeful God. And there’s that harrowing, enormously infuriating conclusion that will surely leave anyone speechless. Surely people with a fair amount of intelligence would realise that a film isn’t only about its ending, and in The Mist, Darabont interpolates darker issues of modern day politics, embodied in Toby Jones’ resonating line: “Humans are inherently insane. That’s why we invented politics and religion.”


VERDICT:

A flawed freakshow, blundered with dodgy CGI, but handled by Darabont with confidence, fuelled by an insightful script and a study of how fear brings the worst out of people, showing that humans are more frightening than monsters.



RATING: B+