The Mist is not Director Darabont's first film adaptation of a Stephen King novel - he previously directed The Shawshank Redemption - but be warned, this film is no Shawshank. In this supernatural thriller, citizens of a small town in Maine are trapped (conveniently enough) in a supermarket while a thick and eerie mist rolls in from the mountains. Though the presence of the mist is enough to provoke the citizens' anxiety, they discover that they have bigger problems when strange and threatening bug-like creatures emerge from it.
Although Darabont presents the message of the film in a clear and compelling manner, it isn't anything that we haven't heard before; human beings stripped of civilization and faced by great uncertainty tend to follow the Hobbesian model. In other words, people are not always kind to their neighbors. Yawn. So what else is new?
Horror movies have an annoying tendency to sacrifice relevant plot points in favor of cheap scares. True to the genre, The Mist's attempt to explain the origin of the mist and its creatures is pathetic, involving something about a military project and other dimensions. Just look at the bugs, and ignore the fact that there is absolutely no scientific reason for the presence of the mist.
For this, the film is a partial disappointment. The message is stale. The events are left virtually unexplained and, in the end, prove almost too fantastical to provoke substantial fear. However (and this is a big however), the unanticipated ending redeems the film considerably. It shatters all expectations. It is so brilliant in its potency and cruelty that it leaves the audience completely stupefied and it makes the rest of the film seem like a worthwhile vehicle to this moment.
