We’ve been here before. Mr. Darabont, The Number One Steven King Movie Fan Boy, attempted something similar with his overcooked Shawshank companion piece, The Green Mile.
But even Shawshank diehards weren’t buying on that occasion.
The Mist, though it shares much of Mile’s silly supernaturalism, is a radically different proposition. Taking cues from The Thing and Christian smash Left Behind, much of the film is given over to a dramatic siege. When an otherworldly fog comes rolling in from an ill-defined military testing site, the denizens of Generic Smalltown, Maine find themselves trapped in their local supermarket.
Terrorised by tentacled beasties lurking in the titular precipitation, brave dad Thomas Jane and plucky store attendant Toby Jones attempt to keep their heads when all around are losing theirs. Some decide to take their chances with the Cuthulu outdoors. In one unbearably poignant scene, a young mother, realising her children are unwisely unattended, walks out the door and is never seen again.
Other survivors seem determined to play out a sly political allegory rife with racial and social tensions. In the red state corner we find Marcia Gay Harden, a terrifying hellfire evangelist who, as the crisis deepens, attracts more and more support for her twisted prophecies of Armageddon. Opposing arguments from irritable lawyer Andre Braugher seem rational though hardly scientific.
In the end, only the monsters spoil our terror and squealing delight. Though Mr. Darabont delivers scares and atmospherics with aplomb, though his impressive cast includes an Oscar winner and a host of eminently respectable character actors, a stupid looking CG pterodactyl is still a stupid looking CG pterodactyl. It’s left to the film’s remarkably downbeat twist to save the day.