A gut-punching horror film that captures with almost perfect pitch the pervasive dread of Stephen King’s best work. Okay, sure: this is a giant other-dimensional bug movie, with a creature-feature set-up (a group of civilians trapped in a small space, facing this aggressive unknown), and laden with many of the sorts of corn-poney character tics that sometimes drowns King’s work. Even with such constraints, though, Frank Darabont works some wonders: the creatures are generally be-misted, foggy hints of things we’re left imagining, or–when dragged into the limelight for stop-motion or goofy-puppet attacks, they’re consistently freaky; the group trapped in the supermarket hew to certain stock traits but the actors and the writing make the human dynamics something consistently stronger than you’d expect from a skeletal plot outline (particularly fine are Toby Jones and William Sadler).
But what fucking nailed me was the way the camera would turn and face–unflinchingly, for far too long–raw human fear and anxiety. Sure, the set-up’s silly, but you take the leap (there are things in the Mist!) and suddenly Thomas Jane trying to console his terrified crying boy for what seems like three full minutes is beyond unnerving–it’s deeply unsettling. Continue reading The Mist