The Mist (2007) | Sci-Fi Saturdays

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One hundred percent chance of terror and chills, accompanied by occasional patches of dread.

This version of Stephen King’s story The Mist may be one of the best adaptations of his work. It has both scary creatures and scary humans, focusing more on the human conditions of fear and grief.

First Impressions

Does knowing that a film comes from the mind of Stephen King make it seem scarier? In this trailer, a mysterious mist settles over a town, so a bunch of people take refuge in a grocery store. One lady believes it’s the end of days. Others aren’t sure what to believe, so a man sets out into the whiteness with a rope tied around his waist. He is quickly dragged away by something. Social conventions break down as factions form and tempers flare. Some kind of flying creature gets into the store, and more attack the windows outside. The only thing scarier than The Mist appears to be the people in the store.

Presented below is the trailer for the film.

The Fiction of The Film

A powerful thunderstorm sweeps through the town of Bridgton, Maine one evening dropping a tree through David Drayton’s (Thomas Jane) front window. His contentious neighbor, Brent Norton (Andre Braugher), also had a tree fall–on his car–and asks David for a ride into town to get supplies until the power and phones are restored. David, his 8-year-old son Billy (Nathan Gamble), and Brent ride into the city center passing several military vehicles from the local “Arrowhead Project” speeding in the opposite direction. The local Food House grocery store is packed when they enter, with many other citizens having the same idea about stocking up. A mysterious mist envelops the store as air raid sirens go off, scaring the people. Dan Miller (Jeffrey DeMunn) runs into the store entrance, bloody, screaming to close the doors because there’s “something in the mist.”

The store employees lock the doors as an earthquake shakes everything up. Some people believe that it may be a chemical explosion at the local mill, but religious fanatic Mrs. Carmody (Marcia Gay Harden) believes it’s the end of days. A woman (Melissa McBride) breaks down crying because her kids are alone at home, and sets off into the thick, white mist. David does his best to calm Billy. He goes into the rear of the store to find blankets and discovers something pressing on the roll-up door. Gathering a few employees, including assistant manager Ollie (Toby Jones), Jim (William Sadler), and Norm (Chris Owen), they open the door. Norm is grabbed by a large tentacle and dragged outside into the mist. David uses an ax to chop off part of the alien-looking tentacle as the others close the door.

David wants to avoid panic and convinces the others to stay quiet when Ollie realizes that the front of the store is plate glass–and easy to break. Brent, an out-of-towner who has had several altercations with David, inserts himself into the conversation. They tell him what they saw, but he fails to believe and refuses to see the proof. Store Manager Bud (Robert Treveiler) agrees to look and sees the tentacle just before it evaporates. Mrs. Carmody begins to pray for her sake, and many others start picking which side to believe. Brent gathers seven others, convincing them they should set off to look for help. One of the group ties a rope to his waist which goes slack about 200 feet out. They pull back the bloodied lower half of the man.

That evening, giant mosquito-looking bugs attracted by the survivors’ flashlights, crash into the front windows, cracking them. An even bigger pterodactyl-esque bird crashes into the store while eating the bugs. Sally (Alexa Davalos) is stung in the throat by a bug and dies minutes later of anaphylaxis. The people attempt to use homemade torches to kill the creatures when Joe (Jackson Hurst) trips over a bucket of lighter fluid setting himself on fire. Ollie, using a gun from Amanda Dunfrey (Laurie Holden), shoots two creatures. Mrs. Carmody gathers more people to her side as they believe her previous predictions about the wrath of God visiting at night. Joe, still alive, begs to be shot, while another woman, Hattie (Susan Watkins), takes an overdose of pills and dies.

David plans to go to the pharmacy next door to get supplies. Billy begs him not to go. Taking Ollie, Joe’s brother Bobby (Brandon O’Dell), Dan, Jim, army officer Wayne (Sam Witwer), and elderly school teacher Irene Reppler (Frances Sternhagen), David finds the drugs they need, but also a den of giant spiders with acid webbing that have captured several of Brent’s group. Bobby and Mike are killed, and Joe succumbs to his burns while they are away. At the grocery store, Jim reveals that Wayne and the other soldiers are responsible for the mist and creatures. Mrs. Carmody forces him to confess, and Wayne says that scientists at the base opened a portal to another dimension, but it wasn’t his fault.

Jim stabs Wayne, and Mrs. Carmody’s flock–who now outnumbers David’s group–turns on the rest. She demands another sacrifice to the creatures, choosing young Billy. As her flock closes around David and his believers, Ollie shoots Mrs. Carmody twice. David gathers those who remain loyal to him and leaves the store. Ollie and a couple of others are killed on the way to David’s Range Rover, but David, Billy, Amanda, Irene, and Dan make it. They drive through the mist looking for help but eventually run out of gas. David has the gun, which only has four bullets left. Looking around at his passengers, they all realize there’s no hope left as a gigantic dinosaur-like, tentacled beast walks past. David shoots the others, including Billy. Anguished and out of ammo, David steps into the mist to be taken. He is surprised as military vehicles drive past, one with the woman who left for her kids earlier, as the mist begins to clear. He breaks down, screaming.

“You scare people badly enough, you can get ’em to do anything.” – David

History in the Making

The Mist serves as an unofficial end to a week of big animal horror films. There’s much more going on here besides giant creatures, with much scarier things happening. It also is the final horror-themed sci-fi movie for the time being, as next week Sci-Fi Saturdays returns to its normal chronological look at science-fiction films. The Mist was based on a novella by Stephen King, which was originally released in 1980 as part of the Dark Forces anthology, and later collected into King’s 1985 collection Skeleton Crew. It is one of the most faithful adaptations of a Stephen King story, hardly straying from the original plot, and differing in the most inconsequential of ways. Its horror comes from strange creatures from an unknown dimension but is truly about the atrocities humans inflict upon one another when fear is allowed to take over. It also pays homage to the supernatural horror invoked by writers like HP Lovecraft and Robert E. Howard, which creates an extremely visceral reaction to this film unlike others before.

By 2007 when this film was released, Stephen King’s stories had been adapted for about 30 years since Carrie in 1976. Over 40 different novels, novellas, and short stories had been made for film and television in this time, with a few being closer to the source material (Cujo, Misery, The Shining TV mini-series) while most stray far and wide (The Shining, Pet Sematary, Graveyard Shift). The Mist sticks to the same general plot and characterizations, changing a few things here and there for pacing. It also augments the ending of the original story, making for a much darker and more depressing finale. In the original story, King opted to end with David’s idea that killing everyone, including his son, is probably the only option. But the novella ends prior to David’s actual deed. For the film, director and screenwriter Frank Darabont decided to extend this idea to its logical conclusion, which creates a huge gut punch to the audience. Being that most horror films end on a more positive note, this decision puts The Mist into a small fraternity of films with tragic and downer endings including The Descent, The Thing, Hereditary, and The Wicker Man.

Frank Darabont was no stranger to Stephen King’s work. He had a long history with the writer and his stories, having adapted The Woman in the Room in 1983 as a short film for his first directorial credit. After writing three horror films in the intervening years (A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors, the 1988 remake of The Blob, and The Fly II), he would return ten years later writing and directing the first of two Oscar-nominated King adaptations, The Shawshank Redemption. While not considered a horror film per se, Shawshank introduced some horrific moments that typify King’s work–the evils of man towards his fellow man. It also provided a huge platform for Darabont’s work, being seen by millions of people. He followed this in 1999 with another King adaptation (and two more Oscar nominations) for The Green Mile, a film both similar and yet different to Shawshank. Similar in that they both take part in prisons, but Green Mile has a whole supernatural subtext to it that is not present in the more real-world setting of Shawshank. The Mist would be his last film project, having devoted his time towards television shows. Over the last two decades, he has executive produced, written, and directed The Walking Dead and Mob City–a period crime-noir series, and will be directing two episodes in the upcoming final season of Stranger Things.

Genre-fication

As a film that is being reviewed under the Sci-Fi Saturdays banner as well as the 31 Days of Horror banner, The Mist needs to satisfy elements of both genres. It is certainly more of a horror film with its interdimensional creatures and psychological terror, but it has several elements that speak to the science-fiction aspect. As a loose final film in the week of big monster horror, is it any surprise that the cause of the monstrous invasion is man meddling with things outside his control? While the novella is a bit more ambiguous, Darabont provides an explanation for the mysterious mist and assorted nightmare creatures. Private Wayne Jessup admits that scientists at Project Arrowhead were to blame. They were attempting to make a window to peer into another dimension (possibly something akin to the time window in Paycheck) when they accidentally created a door. The mist and the creatures then spilled out into our world, wreaking havoc. There’s definitely another story to be told here; of the scientists working to get the doorway closed and the horrific things that must have occurred at the military base. While this is still a second-hand story, it’s a plausible explanation. Throughout the film, there is much hearsay and stories (“I heard stuff,” “I’m sure you’ve heard the stories,” and “They have a crashed flying saucer up there with frozen alien bodies”) about what goes on at the base. No one knows for certain, but everybody has their guess. Private Jessup’s guess is just one with more data points.

The horror in the film comes from the enveloping mist. What lurks out in the unknown? Dan races into the grocery store screaming for people to close the door because there are things outside in the mist. Are there really? At that time it was uncertain. Some people think so, but others aren’t so certain. Overtly, Darabont provides answers. There’s something with huge tentacles out back from the store. There are giant alien mosquitos, birds, and spiders–plus some gargantuan, six-legged, behemoth with tentacles (which may have been what was behind the store). The bugs have inch-long stingers that kill within minutes and the spiders shoot acidic webs that ensnare and restrict movement. The tentacled creature has spines on its arms that grab, and the tentacles can open into flat “palms” with razor-sharp teeth. It’s all nightmare fuel created by the artistic team of Jordu Schell and Bernie Wrightson. Their designs in 2D are frightening enough, but adapt those into the 3D space of the film, and you’ve got a seriously creepy cadre of monsters.

Anybody who tells you that the monsters were the scariest part of The Mist is either not paying attention or lying. They are terrifying, but pale in comparison to the real monsters of the film–humans. Watching the drama unfold as the social constructs of the townsfolk break down, I am reminded of a classic Twilight Zone episode from Season 1 (1960) entitled “The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street.” In that story, the suburban Maple Street is affected by a power outage after a supposed meteor flies over. A young boy shares something identical that he read in a story where the monsters are aliens disguised as a human family. Odd things begin to happen and neighbors begin pointing fingers at one another, blaming them for being different or the monsters. Things escalate until people are shot and injured by the prejudice and fear felt by the small group of people looking to find someone to blame. The episode ends with a pair of aliens using a device to affect the power on Maple Street, claiming that all they need to do is set their plan in motion, and humans will destroy themselves. The Mist captures this paranoia wonderfully, even with real monsters outside, by switching up the worry that one of the survivors is a monster and making the story an argument about faith and religion.

Societal Commentary

When it comes down to it, The Mist is really a film about faith and convictions. Faith, described as “complete trust or confidence in someone or something” underlies every major character action in the film. The audience is never quite sure what David believes. He appears to be the most rational character, taking what he sees and experiences, and adapting his behavior accordingly. He thinks something is outside the store, but doesn’t want to open the door to prove it. But once he’s seen the tentacle sweep Norm out of the loading dock, David knows at that time that regardless of what is outside, it’s safer for people to stay inside. Brent, on the other hand, is a well-educated lawyer from out of town. He believes that he is smarter than the townies who live here year-round. His first assumption is that David and the others are trying to play a joke on him in order to make him look bad. A gotcha! He refuses to even think about taking a look at any of the evidence. Tentacles coming out of the mist? That’s ridiculous. Well, the last laugh is on him, but his death is not presented as a good thing. His belief that everyone else in the store is being overly cautious ends up getting eight people killed. David ends up putting his faith in the evidence presented to him, changing his doctrine as new data come to light.

Then there’s Mrs. Carmody, a nasty woman who uses her belief in God and the Bible–specifically the Old Testament–as a weapon to belittle and control others. From the get-go, she is portrayed as not a nice person. She enters the store and is greeted by Ollie wishing her a good morning. In seeing the long line of people she grouses “With lines like these, I don’t know how good it is, but I guess we’ll have to make do.” We have all met people like this in our lives. Individuals who feel that everyone is out to get them, or that the world owes them something. Mrs. Carmody feels that too, and as the situation seems to bear out her assessment that this is “the end of days,” she begins to weaponize her belief. She is buoyed by her followers each time one of her proclamations bears fruit. “They’ll come tonight, and they’ll take someone else,” she cries. And when that happens, she mistakenly believes that she has a second sight, as do others. Her flock grows, as those who support David shrink. Jim, one of the first people to criticize David in the stock room, becomes his first adherent. He sees the creature for himself, along with many others, and chooses to support him. But after returning from the pharmacy where he has experienced loss firsthand, and seeing Mrs Carmody’s camp swell in size, he abandons David’s rational side for her radical fundamentalism. What she fails to realize is that their situation is not a sporting event where one side wins and another side loses. It is a community where fractious ideology and paranoia threaten the whole. Apparently, enough of the people in the store felt that they were picking the strongest leader to follow, but when that leader was ultimately shot down (literally), they scattered like mice, no longer having a demagogue to rally behind.

The Science in The Fiction

If there’s one thing that everyone can get behind, it’s the idea that opening dimensions to other worlds is bad. Seriously, nothing good has come from this. Whether that’s a portal like in Stargate or one from Phantasm, creating a bridge between our world and another brings alien invasions or worse. In The Mist, other than the brief description of the purported events by Private Jessup, there’s nothing else that explains what may have happened. Based on the events that audiences do see, it would appear that Project Arrowhead also lost power, which may have made them lose control of the interdimensional portal. This would explain why the army convoys were rapidly heading in the opposite direction as David was driving into town. Creating a portal that doesn’t automatically close when it loses power is warning number one in the Guide to Interdimensional Tourism.

The creatures that come out of the mist are things straight out of nightmares. It might not be your nightmares, but maybe some more akin to an H.P. Lovecraft nightmare. His brand of cosmic horror features things like this, and worse. His elder gods and Cthulhu creatures from The Shadow over Innsmouth, Call of Cthulhu, and The Dunwich Horror all deal with humans trying to gain power over others by invoking spells and portals to bring demons and gods from elsewhere. Once the mist begins to recede, does that mean that the creatures have disappeared as well? The army is seen burning webs out of trees as their convoy heads down the road, so maybe there are still some things left that need cleaning up. Hopefully, the lack of mist will make the creatures easier to kill.

The Final Frontier

The cast for The Mist features a number of character actors who have worked with Darabont on many of his films and would continue into The Walking Dead. Jeffrey DeMunn, Laurie Holden, Mellissa McBride, William Sadler, and Brian Libby had all worked with Darabont on one or all of these films: Shawshank, Green Mile, and The Majestic. DeMunn, Holden, and McBride also appeared in The Walking Dead. Sadler had actually played David in the audiobook adaptation of The Mist back in 1986, which is an interesting coincidence. With many of these actors knowing one another, it created a stronger bond with the characters’ interactions in this film. Marcia Gay Harden was amazing as the character audiences love to hate. She doesn’t have quite the level of scariness that Kathy Bates brought to Annie in Misery, but there are plenty of moments that make you want to at least sock her in the mouth. Thomas Jane had co-starred in another Stephen King adaptation from 2003, Dreamcatcher. It was a scary concept but the film was not executed as well as it could have been.

I also want to take a moment to mention the artwork that David has displayed in his studio. He is a graphic artist who creates posters for movies, and there are some great pieces in there, including the poster for John Carpenter’s The Thing. All these images were provided by real-life poster artist Drew Struzan who has created some of the most iconic posters of all time, including the Star Wars films, Big Trouble in Little China, The Goonies, Back to the Future, Hellboy, and dozens of others. David’s current poster, which gets destroyed, appears to be related to King’s Dark Tower series, featuring the Gunslinger. Rewatching The Mist this October was an awesome experience and I’m happy to have been able to share it with all of you on this article series. It’s a film that feels even more relevant within the current political climate of ‘us versus them.’ Always remember that there are more philosophies besides yours and that we all need to be able to discuss our differences in order to move forward and survive.

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