The Mist (2007)
There is a very specific, giddy thrill in watching Frank Darabont's creature feature The Mist and playing "spot the future television star" before they actually became famous. If you're a fan of the first season of The Walking Dead (which, funnily enough, Darabont also directed) you'll be treated to a veritable who's who of that ensemble, including Laurie Holden, Jeffrey DeMunn, and Melissa McBride, long before they were dodging walkers. Throw in a wonderfully grounded turn from Andre Braugher (yes, Captain Holt himself from Brooklyn Nine-Nine), and just the casting alone had me grinning before the first tentacle even slapped the supermarket glass.
It's a highly accomplished piece of mid-2000s horror that feels like a loving, albeit much bloodier, homage to John Carpenter's The Fog. Where it diverges from Carpenter's ghostly revenge tale is in its bestiary. Instead of the undead, the monsters lurking in the thick, white soup are a cracking mix of insectoid nightmares, giant cryptids, and writhing tentacles. What I really appreciated is that Darabont offers absolutely zero scientific or supernatural explanation for what caused the mist in the first place. You aren't bogged down with military briefings or portal mechanics. You're just unceremoniously thrown into the claustrophobic supermarket to experience the sheer, unadulterated panic alongside the trapped shoppers. The suspense is palpable, and the creature design holds up remarkably well, delivering genuine scares rather than cheap jump-shocks.
But the real horror here isn't the giant spiders. It's the people. The film serves as a relatively realistic, deeply unsettling portrait of how quickly society collapses under extreme stress and pressure. Fair play to the script for showing how little mini-alliances form, fracture, and turn violent when you're trapped in a confined space with nowhere to go. Marcia Gay Harden is utterly terrifying as the religious zealot who weaponises the crowd's fear, acting as a brilliant foil to Thomas Jane's desperate, pragmatic father. Watching the social order disintegrate into tribalism and superstition is far more chilling than any CGI beastie could ever be. That's the stuff that stays with you long after the credits roll, and it put me in mind of the similarly suffocating dread I felt watching The Road, another story about the brittle, terrifying edge of human decency when everything falls apart.
Darabont, of course, has form in adapting Stephen King for the screen. I've loved what he's done with King's work before, whether that's The Shawshank Redemption or The Green Mile. Both of those films showed a director capable of extraordinary tenderness and patience. Here, he strips all of that warmth away and replaces it with claustrophobia, chaos, and paranoia. It's a different register entirely, and he pulls it off.
Then, of course, we have to talk about that ending. It is undeniably, stomach-churningly bleak. I still find myself wondering what actual narrative purpose it serves beyond completely gut-punching the audience and leaving them staring at the credits in stunned silence. It borders on being shocking purely for the sake of it, which slightly sours the aftertaste of an otherwise brilliant survival thriller. There's a difference between a hard ending and a cruel one, and The Mist sits right on that line, teetering.
Yet, even with that deeply divisive final act, this is a tense, chaotic, and thoroughly entertaining slice of horror. The monsters are great, the human drama is even better, and the ensemble work is sharp throughout. Just maybe don't watch it on a night when you're already feeling fragile.
Three and a half stars.
Rating: ★★★½ | Year: 2007 | Watched: 2026-07-25
Where to watch
Watch in the UK
Stream: Lionsgate+ Amazon Channel
Rent: Apple TV Store · Amazon Video · Google Play Movies · Sky Store
Buy: Apple TV Store · Amazon Video · Google Play Movies · Sky Store
Physical: Amazon UK · Zavvi
Watch in the US
Stream: AMC+ Roku Premium Channel · YouTube TV · MovieSphere+ Amazon Channel
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Buy: Amazon Video · Apple TV Store · Google Play Movies · YouTube
Physical: Amazon US
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