"The Mist" Saved From Mediocrity By Defining Final Scene

I read the Stephen King novella "The Mist" probably 17 or 18 years ago. After being introduced to King's work, I found a beat-up, dog-eared copy of "Skeleton Key" at a garage sale somewhere, and I remember being blown away that King could blend so many emotions into a single plot, in the Maine equivalent of a Piggly Wiggly.

Yes, "The Mist" primarily takes place in a grocery store. Published in 1980, it represents a perfect example of King's early period, when he was still finding his way as a writer, experimenting with moving outside the bonds and restrictions of the horror genre.

King once described "The Mist" as a prison story, perhaps the precursor to "Shawshank Redemption." As such, it was ideally suited for writer/director Frank Darabont, who had adapted and directed two other King prison-type stories, "Shawshank Redemption" and "Green Mile," for the big screen. You could tell Darabont jumped into this tale of an army experiment gone horribly wrong, and his respect and near-reverence for King is apparent throughout this film.

As to the cast, Tobie Jones was perfect as Ollie Weeks, assistant manager of the supermarket. Thomas Jane was passable as David Drayton, an artist (there was a great nod to the "Dark Tower" and the gunslinger at the beginning, in a painting that Drayton was working on) who takes his son and a neighbor (an overly authoritative Andre Braugher) to the supermarket to load up on supplies in the wake of a destructive storm. But the in-location aspect of the film was carried by Marcia Gay Harden, who was tremendous as Mrs. Carmody, a Puritanically religious freakshow who eventually begins to win over the other captive shoppers with her end-of-days speeches. By the end of the movie, Mrs. Carmody's power within the grocery store reminded me of many elements of "Lord of the Flies." Jeffrey DeMunn and William Sadler stood out as other members of the party who were initially trying to escape the market.

Any discussion of "The Mist" doesn't have any resonance until the ending is mentioned. The novella itself had no real ending, King admits, instead leaving the ultimate fate of a band of survivors up in the air. Darabont came up with a more fitting ending, one he grew so attached to that he turned it into a dealbreaker when he was shopping the film. Give me no money and no time, and that's fine, he said; but try to change the conclusion, and I'm taking this flick elsewhere. In fact, he began developing "The Mist" initially for Paramount Pictures, adapting the novella for the screen; however, it eventually ended up at Dimension Films. That's why the movie was shot in just 37 days in Shreveport, Louisiana—but the ending remained the same.

Was Darabont's stand on the untouchable ending worth it? While it did represent a much darker conclusion than King had initially written, the answer is yes. King signed off on the adaptation, and when I first saw the movie, I was struck by the feeling that the ending was vaguely reminiscent of "Planet of the Apes." The scene gave Jane a vehicle to go outside himself somewhat as an actor, displaying a raw, guttural emotion that borders on the disturbing. As a ho-hum, average actor, this was an opportunity for him to find another side to his character, and he answered the bell.

The beautiful, haunting music ("The Host of Seraphim," by Dead Can Dance) complemented the conclusion perfectly, imbuing it with an overriding feeling of loss and tragedy. The profound final scene singlehandedly turned this film into a movie instead of just a horror flick, marking "The Mist" with a sense of arrival and significance that had been missing throughout.