The Mist (2008)

Warning: SPOILERS
Frank Darabont directs Stephen King story means form. This combination has brought us top-10-film-of-all-time The Shawshank Redemption and the very well received Green Mile (which I haven't seen sadly). So can this, a brave 18-rated horror film about a mysterious mist which hides all kinds of hideous and demonic creatures, live up to past form?

Yes and no. There are flashes of brilliance - and great bravery - here but, ultimately, the film disappoints, which is not, however, to say that it's bad. I hate to do reviews which include spoilers, but I can't avoid it here since vital elements of the plot and story impact heavily on my judgement of the film, so apologies for that and, if you're interested in seeing this, stop reading now.

It's a really good premise - most of the action centres on a group which have been trapped in a supermarket by the enveloping mist. And much of the film's emotional and psychological arc centres around the idea that the greatest danger to humanity is humanity itself. Few things are spared here by Darabont, not humanity, not milataryism, not mob justice, not technological development and definitely not religion. The message is loud and clear - all these things, and more, are responsible for the messes human beings get themselves into. And, in the Mist, they are in the middle of one big heap of a mess, which just gets worse and worse the longer the film goes.

There are some great set-pieces (a scene in a Chemists as the group looks for vital medicines) is taught, frightening, tense and brilliantly put together. Others are less convincing - particularly an early-ish one in the garage at the back of the supermarket which displays very poor CGI that, regrettably, impacts on the film's believability and the brilliance of some stunning and powerful later images.

Still, the temporal centre of the film is gripping and tense, helped by some believable characters and good emotional symbiosis between lead character and ordinary Joe David Drayton (Thomas Jane) and his son Billy (Nathan Gamble). Two excellent contributions by a terrifying Marcia Gay Harden and previous MyFilmVault-lister Andre Braugher (wonderfully obnoxious and drenched in so many of the bad, individualised, aspects of modernity) might well result in spots in my end of year lists. Possibly.

Before the last 30 seconds this is possibly A grade material, but certainly worthy of a B+ and then the unforgivable happens. I cannot stand films which suddenly betray their own landscape of believability. It is absolutely paramount for horror and fantasy films of this type that they inhabit a consistent universe for their running time. Believability is contingent. If a horror film, or a fantasy film, is asking you to suspend belief in the everyday reality before your eyes, it is, then, to go a step too far to ask you to suspend belief in that realm of believability it itself has fictionalised. I apologise for the mouthful, but horror films live and die by this. And the Mist, ultimately, dies.

After escaping with his son and a few others, in a small 4 by 4, Drayton pilots the jeep through a wonderfully eerie, smoky, wilderness, stunningly captured and genuinely gut-wrenching. As ever more strange creatures appear, and as the needle on the petrol indicator slowly falls, you get this awful aching sense right in your gut not only that everything is not going to be okay, but that it cannot be. This is A grade stuff, polished, deep and highly effective. The Mist has enveloped America, if not the world. Finally, the fuel runs out. Drayton takes his gun, with four remaining bullets, shoots his son and the other two passengers to spare them, quite rightly, a fate worse than death, then leaves the jeep to call on the creatures to take him. Then the Mist disappears with a load of military guys following behind it with tanks and flame-throwers. I almost threw the remote through the TV in anger and disappointment. I felt totally cheated. I'd invested 2 hours of my life, caught up in this tension, only to be hit with this incredibly brutal ending which, yet, made no sense according to the film's own universe. Absurd. Utterly absurd. There is no way this mist could have lifted so quickly without Drayton hearing all the tanks, flamethrowers and military planes etc, not to mention other problems (why didn't he at least try to look round for other cars to syphon petrol off - they pass hundreds on the way). Completely gutting. It was a brilliant and brave ending without the absurd extra 30 seconds which revealed the 'twist', which made the whole thing, including Drayton's sacrifice, just seem completely trivial and pointless. This exemplifies everything I mean - good films (like, for example, REC and Cloverfield) are so effective at collapsing believability they don't leave you asking these kind of questions because, simply, these questions don't matter. The film just exists, perfectly and exquisitely, on its own plain.

Also, Jane is just not good enough an actor to pull this off and his effort at the end (which had been perfectly commendable up to this point) is as lamentable as the situation his character finds himself in. Hugely disappointing. What should be lauded as brave, innovative and good film-making has to, instead, be marked down as a disappointment.

This is such a shame as there are great things about the Mist, but it is impossible to recommend a film that leaves you feeling so deeply frustrated. It's still better than the average, so I won't let my disappointment get the better of me and settle on a B-. Like The Happening, a great concept, but a delivery that is ultimately flawed.

B-