Review #9: The Mist (2007)


This review was originally written in October 2016.

Day 9: The Mist

All in all, this is a great movie. I'd seen it before, so it didn't have the full impact as the first time, but it was still great. I don't know of many movies that have done nearly as good of a job of creating atmospheric dread as this movie; the mist itself, the claustrophobic mob-mentality scenes, and the hopelessness that everyone has throughout. The ending segment of the movie, with them driving around, is absolutely terrifying- this movie does so much while showing so little, it's just amazing. The creature design is so otherworldly and creepy- I love it.

That being said, the first half of the movie feels kind of lacking to me, and I think it's because of the dialogue and the character motivations. The first scene in the grocery store has each character ham-fistedly summing up who they are in one sentence (in ways people don't normally speak when buying their groceries) and I really feel it could have been handled better with one more draft of the script. The "villains" in this movie are so one-dimensional and every line of dialogue they have does nothing but reinforce their agenda. Also, the neighbor character spends the first thirty minutes of the movie insisting that there's nothing supernatural going on and ridiculing everyone who says there is- yet he's still unwilling to step out into the mist until halfway through the film! It IS possible to make a character skeptical and antagonistic while still keeping his reactions realistic.

Also, when the bugs start landing on the windows: "What's that? They're attracted to the light? I know- let's turn on every single light in the building!" If they spend the whole movie establishing that the monsters are attracted to bright lights and sound, and they spend the whole movie establishing that attracting the monsters is a BAD thing, why do they spend the entire movie with as many lights as possible?

Anyway, great film. And seriously, dat ending doe. Dat ending.

Rating: 8/10 Cans of vegetables to the face

Best character name in the movie: "Woman With Kids At Home" played by Melissa McBride

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