The Mist Review (2007) Worth Watching?

It's about a small town overcome by a thick mist filled with killer mutants and monsters.

The Mist was directed by Frank Darabont (who also directed Buried Alive) and stars Thomas Jane (from 1922 and The Veil), Laurie Holden (from Pyewacket and Silent Hill) and Toby Jones (from Morgan and Tale of Tales).

Belief divides them

The Mist, not to be confused with The Fog, is a 1950's style creature feature about a military experiment gone wrong and a small town of people who have to fight to survive the creatures it unleashed. It's a low budget affair that feels like a B-movie, which really does have the vibe of a classic Sci-Fi, all the way down to the shoddy CGI. The Blu-ray even comes with a director's cut in black & white which effectively completes the retro style Frank Darabont was going after.

The Mist bombed in theaters when it first came out, odd considering the director's other work included A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors, Shawshank Redemption, The Green Mile and early seasons of The Walking Dead. Half of the cast of The Mist are actually from The Walking Dead.

The movie is based off a Stephen King short story, which is obvious considering it's about a small folksy town having to fight a mysterious force, King's routine plot.

The Mist may feature crazy dragons, mutant flies, spiders and land squids, but it's more a movie about human nature than anything else. The small town grocery store the majority of the film takes place in contains a sampling of all walks of life and shows how people tend to form groups and turn on each other when shit hits the fan (aka The Walking Dead). Religious fanaticism takes the spotlight for most of the movie, as does paranoia, selfishness and distrust.

Overall, I didn't care much for The Mist until around halfway through when the story really begins to come together. It started losing me again close to the ending (it's a long quiet slow burn, think A Quiet Place or Bird Box). But the ending is intense! I won't spoil anything, but it's now one of my top 10 endings in all of horror.