The Mist

"Something… - - in the mist!" cries bloodied and battered local Dan Miller (Jeffrey DeMunn) as he half-dashes, half-stumbles into the supermarket where other townspeople have found themselves holed up after a freakish fog has settled on their small settlement. Since this is a monster movie based upon the work of none other than master of terror Stephen King, you can bet there is a lot more than just "something" in the mist.

As for screenwriter/director Frank Darabont's version of The Mist, there is also more. Yes: more is more in this case. Personally, I think the film would have been stronger showing less of the creatures (and waiting till later), but for those who revere McCarthy-era creature features, complete with paranoia and politics, The Mist will be a solid hit. There are ghoulies galore, and it's the more the scarier when additional aliens show up — and show off their many mandibles, tricky tentacles, and wicked wings.

But before all that — the calm after the storm if you will — we meet illustrator David (Thomas Jane) and his cute kid, Billy (Nathan Gamble), as they head into town to pick up some supplies at the hardware store following a wild wind gust which forced a tree limb through their living room window. That gust blows in more than just a few leaves, as we soon discover: Once our cross-section of townspeople are conveniently cornered in the sundry shop, the creatures come out the mist to prey.

King likes to corner (The Shining, Storm of the Century, The Night Flier), and Darabont likes to cage (The Shawshank Redemption, The Green Mile — both based on S.K. stories, btw) and The Mist provides the best of both worlds: cornered, the citizens turn paranoid and vicious; caged, they search desperately for avenues of escape.

The emotional element of the story is interesting, but it certainly covers no new linoleum. Even Married With Children had a 'trapped in the supermarket' episode, in which many of the same ugly ingredients of human nature surfaced somewhere between the ice cream and the Advil. In The Mist-mart, we've got our good guys David and Billy, and Dan Miller; a steely-eyed evangelist played with Devils-era Ken Russell conviction by Marcia Gay Harden; an arrogant attorney played with haughty weight by Andre Braugher; an elderly and sage schoolteacher played by the fantastic Frances Sternhagen; a pretty, but smart and strong blonde played by Laurie Holden; the shy but simmering store manager played with panache by Toby Jones; and so on.

It's a fairly large ensemble, to which Darabont is used  — in addition to his three previous big-budget movies, each of which had hordes of actors and extras, he also directed several episodes of the marvelous en masse TV drama, The Shield — and he handles them beautifully. Everyone gets just enough screen time. However, in my opinion, the multitude of monsters get way too much of it. Augmented by CGI (admittedly ingeniously created and rendered), these creepy critters would have been mysteriously more frightening left masked in mist.

Everyone is talking about the ending of The Mist, which is a major departure from King's own "fading into the fog" dot-dot-dot period at the end of his short story. I don't mind an ambiguous conclusion at all (in fact I usually prefer them), but I have got to hand it to Darabont for coming up with one of the most definitive, unforgettable climaxes in horror movie history. It's worth the price of admission, alone.

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Reviewed by Staci Layne Wilson

* Horror.com's exclusive interviews with Darabont and the cast

* King and Darabont discuss (without spoiling) the endings of the novella and the movie