“The Mist” Review

Don’t you just love horror films with a social message?

It seems like they are becoming more and more common these days. I’ll admit – a few succeed (Untraceable, for one), but if I had to chose a single word to describe the rest, it would be: lame.

I’ll cut straight to the chase – “The Mist” doesn’t succeed in either presenting an interesting social message or in being scary. In fact, the whole thing plays out like a poorly budgeted made-for-TV movie. The scariest part of the whole experience was my discovery that Frank Darabont (the man behind The Green Mile and The Shawshank Redemption) was the man responsible. What happened to the guy?

Add him to the list of horror film directors gone D-list: M. Night Shyamalan, Wes Craven, George A. Romero, and now Frank Darabont. Is there some contagious disease being pased among the genre’s innovators that we movie-goers should be worried about?

Should I even bother with a synopsis? I suppose so. “The Mist” centers around the character of David Drayton (Thomas Jane), a classically butch and properly heroic father who gets stuck in a grocery store when a freak mist cloud settles over his sleepy little town. Despite being the title of the film, the mist is actually one of the least antagonistic forces in the story. Far more troubling to David are the biologically mutated creatures that live in it (giant spiders, locusts, giant tentacles with teeth, and teradactals – each more laughable than the next). Our hero must also face off against the stereotypical ramblings of the town conservative (played to annoying perfection by Marcia Gay Harden), who gains influence and assumes rulership over the grocery store populace in a suspiciously short amount of time (the whole movie takes place without 2 or 3 days).

Like any post-Sixth Sense thriller, the movie has it’s twist. Unfortunately, it proves to be as equally lame as the rest of the movie, and is not helped by Thomas Jane’s soap-opera style (to my surprise, after writing this I discovered he’s never been in one . . . somebody should call his agent).

To be fair, the movie kept my interest throughout. Points should be awarded to the ever-magnificent Ms. Harden for her disturbing and distasteful performance, which added some much needed fire (and brimstone) to the plot. However, I will stick to my initial statement that this should have never made it to theaters.

My suggestion if you want to see a good movie about humans thrust into a world they no longer control would be to watch War of the Worlds.

My Rating: D

Other Reviews: Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times (2 Stars)

Lisa Shwarzbaum, EW (B+) - I’ll forgive her this time.