Stephen King's 'Mist' in a soupy fog
Source: Baltimore Sun ()
(C) The Mist, slack yet also bludgeoning, derives from a taut, skillful Stephen King novella about a “white and bright but nonreflecting” fogbank that sweeps through a small Maine town. It becomes increasingly terrifying in its “impartiality” and resistance to the normal influences of weather and environment.
A few dozen town residents and tourists hole up in the local food market and discover that the mist hides a menagerie of giant, mutant-like man-eaters. Just as frightening as the fog of inter-species war from the outside is the fog of paranoia inside.
Poster artist, stalwart family man and area native David Drayton (Thomas Jane) tries to control group fear as he holds on to hope, sanity and his little boy, Billy (Nathan Gamble). But his next-door neighbor Brent Norton (Andre Braugher), a big-city lawyer with a chip on his shoulder the size of New Jersey, accuses David of a put-on meant to make out-of-towners look foolish. And a religious fanatic, Mrs. Carmody (Marcia Gay Harden), perceives a wrathful God behind catastrophe. She soon attracts followers with talk of bloody “expiation.” That’s when you scan the shelves for Kool Aid.