The Mist

Is There Anybody - Out There?

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Stephen King's short story The Mist was first published in 1980, now having a slightly edited version from 1985 and a recent novel form specifically tailored to accompany this here motion picture adaptation by director Frank Darabont. According to King, he came up with this story inspired by real life events when dense fog settled on the city he and his family was living in, following an intense storm that rampaged over the region the night before. By the time he and his son were waiting in line to pay for the groceries in the local supermarket, he could see how nice of a show monsters could put up if to surround the building and be concealed by the thick fog, stopping everyone from leaving the site. Question arises: whom are to pose as a more significant danger? Monsters outside? Or maybe there is a pretty-much-monster standing beside you, wearing though the face of a human, ready to judge you and pass that -

proper sentence?

Smooth, legit questions and components to construct strong horror of sterilized entertainment value on. This welcomed collaboration of Darabont and King brings you the classic lockdown situation, spicing up a stable base assumption with cunning microcommunity drama and a solidly presented monster threat. Funny thing is: you could certainly interpret these elements via a certain layout THEN turn it around, as the monsters outside are probably having their own microcommunity drama too, while the spiritual dead ends and profane ignorance people are forced through and pushed to in the supermarket by the monster inside are certainly as grim as the monsters outside. Even grimmer, baby. Even grimmer.

Supermarkets are classic places to stuck in since Dawn of the Dead, an elementary zombie statement from 1978 that many consider a ruthless social commentary, regardless of how director George A. Romero voiced that he did not have such aspirations, though has nothing against if and when someone interprets his work on this register. Indeed, it is comfy to inspect these stuck-in-mall statements through a lens of surficial consumerism. There are different ways to do this, let me offer a certain angle to look at that.

When a zombie/monster militia forces people to establish a safe (?) haven in a supermarket, then suddenly all participants- zombies and humans - are zombies. How come? Surely, the undeads are undeads already, but the humans to stuck inside are effective prisoners both of the supermarket and of the goods it houses. Their stable, immense dependency on the products to maintain a survival factor poses an elegant implication about the essential similarity between human and zombie. Both factions are to survive. For the zombie, the human is the product - the leftover? - to devour, while consuming flesh is the primal agenda. On the other hand, human is similarly constrained to consume the products inside to maintain her/his functionality, thus the inescapable conclusion of being hopelessly dependent and attached to consumption unravels as sour unity between human and zombie. Funny, yes?

Welcomely enough though, King draws this parallel utilizing monsters, while the elements to form a nice extra confrontation on are of humane origins, thus conflicts are imminent to rise even between human characters, let alone the evident treat the creatures outside represent. The monsters have no other function or interest than exhibiting constant terror, and they do that via ruthless, much welcomed efficiency. These creatures are not slow, are not constrained to consume humans, they neither are of this Earth. A multiform of vivid, alien existence, having absolutely no relation to human as the mere concept of relation is probably insignificant/nonexistent to them. They are a breed similar to the Zerg species from the Starcraft video game, and their most frightful aspect a human can encounter with is the fact how blatantly different and lethal they are compared to our specie. Human might be the more sophisticated on the intellectual basis. What this benefit is capable to give him? It gives him the ability to recognize the profane threat the monster represents.

It gives him the ability to fear.



- Can't see a damn THING!
- Oh, they have that in the Rental section.

Darabont summons this atmosphere steadily, creating a vibe in the air where people in the mall must realize that the threats ancient fears were whispering about just claimed factual reality to them. Fortunately enough, King recognizes that the only way to develop the story further on is by accounting how different human personalities are reacting to Fear Unleashed, and surely, he had the cunningness to offer you a monster right beside you, a monster even more dangerous than the breed of species outside.

Meet Mrs. Carmody, masterfully personified by Marcia Gay Harden. Possessor of a radically stable belief system composed of the firmest and darkest convictions about

The Vengeful God,

this woman recognizes humans as - well, it would be not correct to compare humans to micro existences like bacteria, as Mrs. Carmody would certainly state that bacterias are better than humans as they did not commit such blatant sins against the Almighty as us, obscene infidels. For Mrs. Carmody, there are two types of human: the one who have sinned, and the one who have sinned on numerous occasions. She passes judgment on all she encounters like you pass greetings when meeting friends, while the name of the true problem here is that her convictions are rampant enough to utilize consensus fear to form sorrowfully fluent channels that her senseless, dangerous broadcast can travel contagiously on. It is amazing indeed, how existentially - in the physical/spiritual sense - traumatized people are willing to accept an evidently false interpretation of something they can not comprehend IF and WHEN this circumstance to threat them has all chances to eradicate them. The false conviction of having some understanding, some proper relation about/to the nature of the monsters is needed to maintain the sanity that otherwise would be certainly lost. Thus man has no further interest about keeping an autonomy that just have failed and left him clueless, not even if his conviction is evidently false. A conviction he needs, a conviction to comfortably relate to, it's quality is no longer of primal importance. Not when the entities man must sew his convictions for are so alien, so lethal and so mighty.

From that point, Mrs. Carmody's Kingdom is free to claim by the Judgmental Mistress. Nothing, absolutely nothing is way too expensive if someone claims to be aware of the solution, just make the fear stop, just make it nonexistent.



The Mist is a monster movie indeed, though there are no monsters in it, just one: Mrs.Carmody. The species outside are probably having their confused roam-around in the mist, probably possessing no recollection of how they ended up here, though King will account on that in a brief, yet satisfactory fashion. The species are components to firstly outline, then to essentially substantialize fear among the mall people, the fear Mrs. Carmody is able to forge her crown of, and that, she does to the point where other protagonists are lethally endangered by her massively deranged way of thinking, a supernegative vibe to claim and greet allies among the spiritually weak. We shall even say: spiritually semi-blind.

Notice: all this could be a very cool theater play, even without the monsters shown. One could invent her/his own, no? Fear not, or do just that though, as in The Mist, Darabont does show you the monsters, and I must say the creative team did quite nice of a job on them. The species are exhibiting intellect and rampant aggressivity, also you will have the chance to witness a whole series of variants on them. Small, medium, large, extra large, You Gotta Be Kidding Me-sizes are all included and nicely accounted on via visual and narrative registers. I particularly liked the first occasion we are to witness a representative of the breed via a probably quite big monster with tentacles. I found this creature to be very well researched and well presented with it's multifunctional limbs, an asset it could reach distant, even tiny places with and attack anything at those places via the vicious fangs it possesses all through the tentacles. The brief sketch where the monster proudly shows off his tentacle fangs is a definite OMG! for me. A vivid, intelligent, rampant, organically legit creature you witness. What more could we anticipate from a decent monster flick? Oh yes, we could anticipate more of vivid, intelligent, rampant, organically legit creatures, I think. The fact that The Mist comes up with such creatures - because it does, you will have nice surprises - is a rather fortunate circumstance to encounter, also a design language of seriousness that I'd like to remain to fuel further monster movies.



SOME hitch-hikers ARE persistent!

The Mist delivers a stable actor palette with but occasional glimpses at sorrowful verges of overacting primarily on Thomas Jane's part who gives you the focal character to narrate the story. I particularly disliked the constantly reoccurring scenes to depict Thomas Jane hugging his little boy, assuring him how much he loves him and how OK everything will be and bluhbluhbluhbluh. Laurie Holden gives you a stable supportive role as female sidekick, while Toby Jones as Ollie, an employee at the mall offers a very authentic, likeable rendition of your everyday, friendly, "normal-little-guy". Jim Grondin is of special note, as well. The hardened, proud overall worker is among the starters to fall in for and support Mrs.Carmody's judgmentmania, giving you a nicely outlined inner breakdown taking place in this fluently working archetype character.



- Hisssssssssssss! HISSSSSSSSSSS! HISSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS!
- Yegoddaaaaaatrite, missssstressssss.

The Mist has a different ending to it than the written original. While many consider it a "wrong" conclusion, I must say I liked it very much, and felt that way through the unbearable emotional state the protagonist ends up in. This is a highly effective twist to wrap this story up with. That very final scene-buildup with the small party of protagonists driving into the mist AND the final conclusion they arrive at do embed a massively strong final touch into the narrative structure in my opinion. A much more significant final touch than the one you would end up with via a mist to vanish. The mist DOES vanish in the end, by the way. What you see to remain right beside you is not necessarily a scenery to please you immensely though.



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