(2007) **** 1/2
Impeccably-timed terror and chemistry between characters shapes one of my newly-discovered favorite horror movies: The Mist. My sister loaned this to me about two years ago when she was cleaning out her DVD collection to make room for more. I love my sis for a lot of reasons, but DVD hand-me-downs is probably in my top five. :-D
JPX and 50P have reviewed this one in the past, both of which are insightful – and 50P's comment about “Government's got better things to spend our money on [than education]” makes me chuckle every time. I don't want to spend too much time summarizing since it's been reviewed twice, and very thoroughly.
The thing that I love about cookie-cutter stories involving “a bunch o' people trapped in a large, enclosed space” is the fact that it doesn't really matter if there's a threatening force outside or not – because once personal relationships put one person against another, we've got a great story about humanity. It doesn't matter if the supermarket were surrounded by mist or by deadly bunnies.
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| Also available to put on your feet! |
The computer effects of the evil nasty things range from absolutely terrifying to absolutely breathtaking. I'm one of a few people I know who will complain to no end about the abundance of CG-animation and effects in movies (in short, they suck! Bring back Muppets/Jim Henson stuff), but it brought a fantastic element to The Mist that I really enjoyed.
My main critique of the movie is the kid: some movie kids know-it-all, some are jackasses and get theirs in the end. But this one? This one's like a LOG.
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| carrying kid in movie poster |
He gets carried everywhere! C'mon, the kid's like what, seven years old? He can help loot for supplies! Or sing and dance and baby-talk in short, simple sentences when morale is low!
But nooooooooooooooooo. He gets carried around everywhere like he's got pipe-cleaners for legs:
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| carrying kid away from danger |
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| carrying kid in supermarket |
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| carrying kid away from danger IN supermarket |
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| Do the right thing . . . do the COMMUNIST thing. |
The ending didn't leave me feeling optimistic (not that it's supposed to), but rather unsettled, desperate, and full of sorrow. Then I saw that Stephen King wrote it and got pissed – I swear, that man's got a way with constructing stories that, for some reason, really get under my skin.
I give it such a high rating because of the story of survival it depicts, peeling away the superficial worries we face day-to-day and seeing what lies underneath and to what lengths would we go to survive. If you were faced with the same challenges, would you do the same thing?
