Review - The Mist (2007) by Craig Taylor

As many of you already know, I encourage my readers to submit in reviews or articles for me to publish on the bog. Today’s post is a guest review by Craig Taylor (agent_achilles on Twitter) who is a huge horror fan. He saw one of my favorite Stephen King adapted movies… The Mist. Here is his review of it.

"One of my favorite horror films is The Mist. This Stephen King adaptation was directed by Frank Darabont (thank goodness) and is one of the best films based on a King story. You had everything that you want in a horror film: gore, good storytelling, solid characters and scary moments. Horror movies have been a little lackluster during the last several years. Some stories were promising but fell short upon viewing. Seems as though I was disappointed more often than not. Being a child of the 80's, I was witness to many great and original horror movies. In the last decade to 15 years, the horror genre has had more remakes than I care to count. I just wanted something fresh and scary... well this is one of those movies. The story is pretty simple. A freak storm unleashes a strange mist throughout a small Maine town. The lead character David (played by Thomas Jane) takes his son Billy and his neighbor Brent Norton to a local supermarket. They notice some 3 military men approached by another soldier who orders them to come out to his vehicle. All of a sudden the shoppers heard the Klaxon alarm blaring and then one of the local men runs into the store with a bloodied face screaming "there's something in the mist!!" By this point the shoppers in the supermarket are still not understanding what's going on but soon realize the mist has reached the store and the local man shouts about something in the mist took people. Soon the story creates divisions among the shoppers.

David seeing how far someone can walk out safely in the mist.

David and a few men go to the loading dock to check the generator (David heard noises outside the bay door). Foolishly and against David's advice the men open the bay door and the bag boy gets attacked by giant tentacles with teeth that devours things. The tentacles pull him out of the dock and to a horrible death. The characters are in shock and are wondering "what the hell kind of creature has tentacles like that?" When David and the other men tell the folks in market about the ordeal, people start taking sides about whether to believe the story about monsters and how to deal with the crisis. One of the sides belong to Mrs. Carmody (played wonderfully by Marcia Gay Harden) who is a super religious outcast. She claims to the entire store that this is the sign of the end of times God is punishing us). She begins to recruit others to her twisted views. As her 'teachings' become more violent and speak of human sacrifice to appease God, David must decide if it is more dangerous to stay in the supermarket or out into the mist with creatures beyond imagination.

The movie has great pace and kept me glued to it the whole way. I live in Maine actually not too far from where the story took place and I think the movie captures the small town feel. You get wrapped up in the characters and the sides that they take. There are very powerful scenes and I think they were interwoven with horror and gore seamlessly. You go for a rollercoaster ride watching this movie (and I have only described the first act). The ending will shock you. It is one of the most unthinkable ways to end the film- you definitely will be surprised. So if you want an intelligent and scary movie to watch… check out The Mist and if you have seen it already… pop in that DVD for a repeat fun ride."