Review: The Mist

Originally posted at Epinions

There's this thing that happens when a Stephen King story is adapted into a film. It doesn't always, always happen. But it usually does. What is it? It's that Stephen King's stories, tales of horror, terror, survival, and human nature, stories that read so well on the page, become, well, bad. Almost every single story to be adapted into a film fails to translate onto the screen. Most Stephen King films look like cheap made for TV crap (which, granted, many of them are).

There are of course the notable exceptions. Among them are Brian De Palma's Carrie, Stanley Kubrick's The Shining, Rob Reiner's Stand By Me and Frank Darabont's The Shawshank Redemption. Not only is Shawshank Redemption a great adaptation, it is a great film frequently listed at the top of Best Of... lists. In addition to Shawshank, Darabont has also given us The Green Mile. While not topping Shawshank it to is a great adaptation. So when Darabont decided to give us yet another Stephen King story, The Mist, I'll admit it. I was a little excited.

The Mist is an adaptation of the novella by the same name that appeared first in Dark Forces and then again in the short story collection Skeleton Crew. It's the story of David Drayton and what happens when a mysterious mist envelops his hometown in Main. A violent storm rips through Main, wreaking havoc and destroying property. The following day, as the people take stock of the damage, a strange mist descends upon them from the hills to north. Hills that are home to a military base and the mysterious Arrowhead Project.

David, his young son Billy, and their neighbor Brent Norton make a trip to the supermarket where many others have come to stock up on supplies. While in the market, the mist rolls in. As the outside world disappears from view, the earth shakes and everything seems to stop. In the silence a single man runs through the white. "There's something in the mist!" he screams. Blood pours from his nose. Frightened, the people in the market shut the glass doors against the acrid smelling mist, against whatever else is lurking in it.

What follows is a survival story that has Stephen King's fingerprints all over it. We are introduced to a cast of characters including David, an artist known for his movie posters, Norton, a slick talking lawyer from New York, Ollie Weeks, an unassuming employee of the market, Amanda Dunfrey, the new teacher in town, Irene, Dan Miller, Bud Brown, and finally, Mrs. Carmody.

Played by Thomas Jane (The Punisher), David is the classic King hero. A regular guy, a family guy, a strong guy with a head on his shoulders who manages to stay cool in an extreme circumstance. Amanda (Laurie Holden) is the classic King heroine. She's hot, she's sexual, she doesn't need a man and therefore she's a woman who every man wants. While The Mist is definitely Thomas Jane's movie, Marcia Gay Harden comes within a hair's distance of stealing it from him. As the doom saying, sacrifice preaching Mrs. Carmody, Harden is as frightening as she is passionate. While, again, this is Jane's movie, Harden's performance is close to being the best part of it.

The Mist is different kind of King story than Shawshank Redemption and The Green Mile. While Stephen King is known for his horror, his supernatural stories, there are variations. Some stories are more tails of humanity that happen to contain a couple of elements of horror. Some stories however are meant to scare. They are stories of monsters, death, of things that go bump in the night, they are tails about things that would make most of us lose our sanity before we could even fully comprehend what we are facing. Shawshank Redemption is story of human nature; The Mist is a story of survival, a story of terror. The thing I was most interested to see was how Darabont would handle this different kind of Stephen King story.

For the most part, he handles it very, very well. The actors, the characters they play, how Darabont goes about shooting a film that spends most of its time in one interior location. All of these things work. What also works are the small details. A character decides to leave the store, to make a run for his truck. David asks him to tie a clothesline around his waist, so they can see how far he gets. At first the rope plays out as it should. Then, it stops. The people in the store wait tensely, their breaths held. Finally, the rope moves again. There is a sigh of relief followed quickly by a cry of terror. The rope flies through David's hands, burning his palms. And then, it not only pulls out faster than any human could pull it, it starts to slide upward. Up and up until it hits the top of the door. It pulls taught and finally, it stops again, falling harmlessly to floor. What that bit shows is not only that something has gotten the man outside, it shows quietly, visually, exactly how unimaginably large whatever the thing hiding in the mist actually is.

Little bits like this work very well. Unfortunately there are other bits that don't reach the same successful level. I think the biggest problem Darabont has in his adaptation is, well, his adaptation. While he has made changes, he has his additions, there is so much that he has taken almost word for word from the story. What works so well on the page does not always work on the screen. There are scenes that seem written by a fan boy, scenes almost comical in how literally they take King's story. I'm all about fidelity in an adaptation but there is a line before it becomes too much. Darabont regrettably crosses that line several times.

In spite of this one fallback, for the most part Darabont succeeds in giving us a gripping story of horror and humanity. And, as in the story, the key to survival becomes a question of where the greatest danger exists. Is it outside with the monsters in the mist? Or is it inside with monsters in our hearts? What I find most interesting about Darabont's adaptation is that where it stays so close to the story for so much of it, in the end it moves so far away. One thing that King is best at is giving us the ambiguous ending. He takes the story so far and then he leaves us. And while in some ways we may want to know if our heroes live or die, in another his endings are very satisfying because they always leave us at just the right moment. They give us enough and what we are left with are ambiguities in our characters' fates that compliment whatever story King is trying to tell.

Darabont takes The Mist one step farther than King does. We see our characters' fates. As a result, I feel like the ambiguity still exists but it serves a different purpose. Where in King's story Mrs. Carmody and her fanaticism are an absolute evil, in Darabont's film I'm not as sure as to what it is the message is supposed to be. The ending Darabont gives us at first was a complete shock and I kind of liked it. Rather than hold back, he punches his audience in the gut, hard. However, after more thought I'm not sure how I feel about it because it colors the rest of the movie. What is Darabont trying to say about David and the others? I know how I want to feel, how I want to interpret things, but the ending of the film doesn't let me go completely the direction I want to go. So in this moment I think I have to say that I prefer King's ending. It's not that it's uncomplicated or easy, it's just that I think it's more successful in having a stance and getting a point across. I don't feel like Darabont ever gets there. I don't feel like he has a clear stance, I don't feel like his message is decided.

Really though, just taking The Mist for what it is, a horror story set in a supermarket with various people fighting for survival, it's a really good time. It kept me entertained, I liked the people I was watching, and overall I really enjoyed it. And there it is. Not the best Stephen King adaptation ever made but still. The Mist is a competent, well done film with a good story. It's a Stephen King movie actually worth your time.