The Mist

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Rating 4


Directed by Frank Darabont

Written by Frank Darabont, based on the novel by Stephen King

Starring Thomas Jane, Marcia Gay Harden, Toby Jones, Laurie Holden, Andre Braugher, Nathan Gamble and William Sadler


Following a fierce storm, which brings down a tree from his next-door neighbour’s property onto his house, causing structural damage, David Drayton (Thomas Jane) drives into the local town, a small community, to obtain supplies from the convenience store, taking his young son Billy (Nathan Gamble) with him. His neighbour Brent Norton (Andre Braugher), a successful city lawyer who has recently moved into the community, goes with them, although he has previously sued Drayton in a civil action and the two have a frosty relationship.

When they arrive in town they become trapped inside the convenience store by a mysterious thick fog, with warnings that it hides hideous and deadly creatures, seemingly conjured up by some terrible nightmare. The people in the store quickly begin to split into three factions – those who believe the creatures exist and look for a way out, those who think the creatures are nothing more than the product of mass hysteria, and those who believe it is the vengeance of God, the start of an apocalypse brought about by the corrupt and immoral nature of mankind. As the true horror of what they face becomes clear, so too does the paranoia it brings with it.

‘The Mist’ creates a believable and unsettling aura of fear in which the threat of the mysterious creatures in the fog is more than matched by the threat posed by the increasingly deranged and violent religious faction inside the store, led by possibly mentally unstable Mrs Carmody (Marcia Gay Harden). The film does not pull any punches in its condemnation of extremist religious intolerance and is equally critical of military proliferation and the pursuit of science devoid of moral responsibility. It paints a very bleak picture and is clearly influenced by the terrible events that have dominated world news during the administration of the American President George W Bush.

The film has a 72% fresh rating at Rotten Tomatoes from 135 reviews. It grossed a little over $57 million at the box office against a production budget of $18 million. Its director, Frank Darabont, has previously adapted two other Stephen King novels for the cimema, ‘The Shawshank Redemption’ and ‘The Green Mile’.



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