This past fall Stephen King’s The Mist directed by Frank Darabont was released. This is the third film adaptation that Darabont has directed with King. The first film was Shawshank Redemption and the second was The Green Mile. Almost all movie goers are familiar with these two films. They were both widely successful at the box office.
The Mist is set in a rural town in present day Maine. The Army has been conducting experiments on a nearby mountain when something goes wrong. Creatures from another dimension spill into our world and descend on the town in a fog like “mist”. The creatures then reek havoc on the small town and its residents. The movie focuses on a group of locals who hole-up in a grocery store once the mist has settled on the town. From there on the creatures seem to kill anything that goes into the mist.
After watching the movie my friends and I discussed what we thought about it. One of my friends said that it sucked and that the special effects weren’t that good. While my other friend said that it was completely unbelievable (You have to remember that it is a sci fi movie and there is some suspension of disbelief that needs to take place while watching it. Obviously my friend failed to see that.) and that it wasn’t scary at all.
I disagreed with their interpretation of the movie. They were only seeing the obvious elements of the movie. They didn’t see the underlying theme. The movie wasn’t just about the creatures killing the people, the special effects and the gore. It was about how people react when they are put in dangerous situations that they don’t understand and fear.
As the movie progresses the citizens grow more and more irrational. Mrs. Carmody a religious zealot begins to preach to the group in the grocery store like a congregation. You can easily tell that there are some screws lose with Mrs. Carmody and that she isn’t your garden variety religious buff. She then persuades the now growing “congregation” into sacrificing one of the Army privates to the creatures. They believe that this will appease the creatures appetites and that this is what God wants. The followers do this without hesitation. The butcher in the grocery store then fatally stabs the boy and locks him outside. He is quickly eaten by a large crablike creature. You can see here that the majority of the seemingly normal group of people before, have been transformed by their fear and uncertainty into monsters themselves. Since Mrs. Carmody claims to have the answer they follow her even to the point of murder. The people don’t know what’s happening. They are completely confused looking for answers to what will save them, what is happening and why its happening. Their fear takes over all rational behavior and thinking. The few people left outside of Mrs. Carmody’s group of followers now have to make a decision between the monsters inside the store or outside.
In the final moments of the movie, David Drayton the main character and his pre teen son, along with Laurie Holden a new nurse in town and an older couple get to their car and drive till they run out of gas. Still in the mist, Drayton convinces himself with the support of Laurie and the older couple to shoot and kill them with the gun Drayton got form the store owner. With the last four bullets, Drayton takes the gun and kills them all starting with his son leaving only him in the car. They had become so petrified by their fear of the creatures that they would rather die now than wait for some kind of help. I wont disclose what happens in the few minutes left in the movie so I don’t ruin the whole thing for you.
For most of the film we watch the group of people and how they change. We see an increasingly hostile group of people trying to cope with what is happening around them and the fear that grips them. We watch as that fear manipulates the peoples actions and judgments. Except for the handful of scenes where people are attacked by the creatures the movie concentrates on these changes.