Cinema Spotlight: 3 Moments from The Mist

The Mist is almost a great horror movie. I think ultimately it’s too cheesy, awkward, searching for the right tone, and some of the actors are out of their depth (like our lead, and Andre Braugher seems to come from a different movie altogether), but there’s a lot of great stuff in there too. It’s another Stephen King adaptation from writer/director Frank Darabont, his third after The Shawshank Redemption and The Green Mile, and another worthy one. It's about a strange mist that befalls a small Maine community, bringing with it various monsters of untold origins (we later find it's through some inter-dimensional portal), who proceed to kill and terrorize the people of the town.

The first moment that comes to mind is during the oncoming of the titular mist. People look around confused and we start to hear sirens. Some call them air raid sirens, or tornado sirens where I’m from, but it’s the sound of oncoming danger and destruction, but it’s just mist, right? The mist even swallows the sound of the sirens, but that moment of hearing that sound filled me with a great sense of dread. That’s what you want in the beginning of a horror movie.

The next moment is a famous one from the movie, as the remaining survivors are driving along a road trying to escape the monsters in the mist and across their path comes a monster so large it shakes the ground all around it as it walks. It's covered in tentacles and makes a growling, roaring sound that is unlike anything we'd ever encounter in our world. This titanic god of a creature truly brings to mind the awe and scale of HP Lovecraft’s work, making us feel insignificant in comparison to this monster.

The last moment of the film I want to spotlight is the last moments of the film. After running out of gas as they’re driving away, seeing many grotesque bits of death and destruction around them, the group of 5 decide that it’s better to die at their own hand than be killed by the various beasts from the mist, so our lead David (Thomas Jane) shoots each one of the others with the gun they’d brought with them, including his young son. A devastated David lastly turns the gun on himself only to find it out of bullets. So David then steps out of the car, and awaits to get consumed by the mist. Instead, the mist recedes, and we see the US Army has closed the dimensional portal that allowed the mist and creatures to come through.

The Army has many survivors in tow, and they are exterminating any and all creatures they come across. David can do nothing but stand in shock as he realizes that not only were the groups suicides unnecessary and that they were only moments from being saved, but that they had actually been driving away from help the whole time. It’s a nihilistic and depressing ending, but handled extraordinarily well by Darabont. This is the moment that most feels like Jane is out of his depth as an actor, as his grief doesn’t feel believable and comes off a little goofy, but it doesn’t diminish this great and powerful ending, even as much of a downer as it is.