The Mist
2007
***
Director: Frank Darabont
Cast: Thomas Jane, Marcia Gay Harden, Laurie Holden, Jeffrey DeMunn, Andre Braugher, Toby Jones, William Sadler, Frances Sternhagen, Nathan Gamble
Following a storm, an ominous mist settles over a small Maine town. An artist, his 8-year-old son and other local residents are holed up in a grocery store where the group hopes to stay safe from the dangers lurking outside. Frank Darabont's third Stephen King adaptation feels like a cross between The Fog and Starship Troopers. The set-up is not original but it provides a nice platform for a study on group dynamics, religious hysteria and paranoia. This scary movie loses some of its initial impact when the unknown dread materialises as gigantic creepy-crawlies, but it alternates nicely between psychological thrills and full-blooded gore, and offers one of the grimmest endings in living memory.
