The Mist

It has taken eight months for 'The Mist' to descend onto British cinema screens since it debuted in America last November, and has already made it onto DVD stateside. So why have we been made to wait so long? Well it's fair to say that the US audience didn't really take to Frank Darabont's latest Stephen King adaptation, grossing only $25million, our friends across the pond struggling with it’s downbeat ending. The final scene is, well, it's not the cheeriest...in fact it may be one of the most heartbreaking, depressing and downright bleakest endings to a film in recent years. But don't let that put you off, after all, this is a horror movie, you wouldn't expect it to leave you feeling all warm and fuzzy inside.

Darabont's previous takes on King novels have included 'The Green Mile' and 'The Shawshank Redemption', not a bad track record. He saturated both of those pieces with an overriding sense of hope, 'The Mist' chews up that hope and spits back a cocktail of pessimism and despair. The film follows David Drayton (Thomas Jayne) and his young son Billy (Nathan Gamble) who are trapped in a local supermarket alongside members of their small-town community, when the titular mist surrounds the store. All matter of horrible creatures, great and small, begin to emerge from the mist in true B-movie style, the threat of the monsters becoming more real and more terrifying with each confrontation.

Trapped, afraid and confused, the shoppers wander towards 'Lord of the Flies' territory as human nature's less favourable aspects come to the fore and we are forced to ask ourselves: Is the greater danger posed by the beasts outside, or the beasts within? Granted this is not the first time that this avenue has been explored, but when done as well as it is here, it rarely fails to raise many important issues and questions about the darker side of the human condition. This is personified by the deeply religious Mrs Carmody (Marcia Gay Harden), her fundamentalist beliefs and crazed rants slowly but surely gain her supporters amongst the wayward flock of shoppers. At times you may question such a deranged character but Harden's portrayal is fantastically intense nonetheless.

Such patent digs at organised religion however and exceptionally thinly-veiled digs at the Bush administration that are peppered throughout the script are shortcomings that needlessly divert attention away from a gripping horror story that otherwise rarely relents in pace and terror. There seems little need for such subtext and the lack of subtlety in it’s deliverance at times grows thoroughly exasperating. Apart from that the film excels and you can barely believe that it was received so badly by the US public. Sorry America, but you got it badly wrong on this occasion. The final five minutes are worth the extra eight-month wait alone, let's hope that we can show it the appreciation that it deserves.

Verdict: A fantastic example of mainstream horror on a smaller budget and the latest on the ever-growing list of successful Stephen King big-screen adaptations.