Surprised by The Mist

When my friend Andy invited me to see the movie The Mist with him, I was a bit hesitant at first. But since I hadn't had a chance to hang-out with Andy for some time, I made plans to meet him at my office. I do like a good horror flick, and dinner and a movie with a good friend is always one of my favorite outings.

I always have a hard time letting go of expectations and preconceived notions when I see a movie. There are certain directors or actors from whom I always expect great films. And it stands to reason that there are movies that I simply choose not to see because I have low expectations. I'm not a fan of Eddie Murphy or Jim Carry, for example. My expectations for The Mist were quite low. For starters, the movie is based on a novella by Stephen King. While I am an avid reader, I have read only one Stephen King novel which I did not particularly enjoy. In addition, I whole-heartedly subscribe to the opinion that the book is always better than the movie. If you put all of that information into some sort of equation, the obvious outcome would suggest that it was unlikely that I would enjoy this movie at all.

The third strike sending this film back to the dugout was somewhat of a toss-up between lack of star power and monsters. First, if I'm going to spend two hours in a theater watching a film adaptation of a Stephen King novel which I would never read, I need the jumbo popcorn, the jumbo Diet Coke, and EYE CANDY. I need something to look at... George Clooney, Brad Pit, Antonio Banderas... I'll even settle for Angelina Jolie. No such luck in The Mist. The final fatal flaw of this flick in my estimation... Monsters. I love scary movies, but I'm not frightened by monsters. Why? You might ask... Because they simply are not real. Hannibal Lector scares the crap out of me. That guy wielding the chainsaw in Texas kept me sleeping with the lights on for a few days. But, monsters--even those that are the result of a military experiment gone terribly amiss--just don't provide enough fear factor for me. Sadly, I had committed to the movie making myself a captive audience of one.

The Mist turned out to be an okay film. While I cannot rave on and on about brilliant acting or a screenplay of literary merit, I must admit that I left the theater truly thinking about the movie. I described The Mist as a blend of The Lord of the Flies and War of the Worlds. Monsters and Mr. King aside, the film examines the powerful force of fear and uncertainty on human nature. As I watched the movie, I kept asking myself which was scarier--the giant insects and monsters that were lurking in the mist or the religious fanatic preaching of the end times and effectively brainwashing a group of followers to the point that they sacrifice one of their own? As the film moved forward to an ending that no one could see coming, I became more and more uncomfortable with the behavior of the characters on screen who were so easily swayed by manufactured ideologies as well as the monsters that were manufactured by the military all of which were cleverly shrouded by the mist. As the characters slowly discovered that everything they had put their faith in, the very infrastructure of society, was collapsing leaving them to fend for themselves, I became horrified by the reality of what I was witnessing on screen. The question that was plaguing me as I made my way home from the theater was this: What or who are the real monsters?

The Mist is worth seeing. I'm still not convinced that the movie was worth $10.50 admission at the box office, but I would recommend it for home-viewing on DVD.

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Surprised by The Mist