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Horror Movie Matters #5 The Mist
#5 The Mist 2007, Dir. Frank Darabont
H. P. Lovecraft once wrote that “The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear, and the oldest and strongest kind of fear is fear of the unknown”
This is probably one of the most apt statements ever made with regard to humanity and the horror genre. Long before the advent of cinema, writers and storytellers have tried to make sense of fear with the creation of the horror story.
Genre stories are often used to explain the human experience in terms that are easily digestible. The subject of racism can be a prickly one, but throw in flesh eating gouls, and that’s something people can get behind. A spoon full of monsters help the medicine go down…so to speak.
This method of genre storytelling is never more present than in the horror film The Mist.
We begin with the Drayton family. After a huge storm devastates there home and most of the homes in their New England town, Paul Drayton (Played by Thomas Jane) and his son go to the local supermarket to pick up supplies. After an introduction to several of the town’s residents the horror begins. A thick mist roles into town heralded by Jeffery Demunn shouting “There’s something in the mist…”
As people race to their vehicles and are presumably destroyed by the aforementioned “something”, those left in the supermarket are forced to figure out what to do. Theories fly about what’s going on “Polution clouds, a Mill explosion, even the end of days” soon we are amerced in the real world problems of the characters.
This premise has been done before, but what distinguishes it from the rest of the pack is the strong characters and believable drama of the situation. A mother leaves the store to get home to her children, Drayton has to take care of his son all the while worrying about his wife he left at home just minutes ago.
Without the use of gore and monsters, the grocery store becomes a microcosm for our society. School teachers, parents, blue collar guys and religious zealots begin to step forward in the face of disaster. We find that with the simple introduction we know who these characters and are and care about whether they live or die. This is essential in good horror to create tension. If the characters are vacuous and shallow, we may find that we sympathize more with the monster than with our “hero” you can’t see my fingers but I did air quotes just then.
By the time the monsters show up, we are already invested in the drama of the characters and therefore the tentacled creatures and giant insects are icing on the cake. While trying to survive the night, and deal with the Lovecraftian horrors in the Mist outside the tensions between the characters rise to a fever pitch.
The residents of the store find themselves splitting into two factions. Some follow religious zealot Mrs. Carmody played by Marcia Gay Harden, who demand blood sacrifice in the name of God, and Brent Norton, played by Andre Braugher a skeptical lawyer who denies any supernatural phenomenon. The rest of the folks seem to be caught in the middle and realize they may have bigger problems than monsters banging at their door.
If I had one negative thing to say about the film, it’s that it wasn’t released in black and white as originally intended presumably, because audiences won’t turn out for back and white films anymore. Thankfully Darabont gives us the choice between the two versions on the two disc DVD. The color version is good, but black and white does much to generate mood and helps the look of some of the computer generated monsters.
This is a classic tale of man’s inhumanity to man and a study of what human beings are capable of under extreme duress. With a fantastic cast that includes characters actors William Sadler, Jeffery Demunn, Marcia Gay Harden, and brilliant direction from The Shawshank Redemption’s Frank Darabont, The Mist should be considered a modern horror classic.
I would recommend this film to fans of horror and drama alike. However the movie’s brilliant but nihilistic ending may leave you feeling a tad bummed out.
ON TO HORROR MOVIE MATTERS #4 LET THE RIGHT ONE IN 2008 DIR. THOMAS ALFREDSON
Horror Movie Matters #15 Evil Dead 2: Dead by Dawn
#15: Evil Dead II 1987 Dir. Sam Raimi
In 1983, The Evil Dead was widely released. It was given a rave review by Stephen King and gained publicity through being banned in several countries. Due to the film’s marginal success, it was granted permission for a sequel. Evil Dead II: Dead by Dawn isn’t so much a sequel, as it is an extended, comedy remake. The first Evil Dead film played everything straight and most of the black comedy was derived from uncomfortable surprises like the “amorous tree scene”, but Evil Dead II takes everything to the next level and lets its the audience in on the joke, turning this 1980’s horror film into a demented Warner Bros. cartoon. The film begins with Ash Williams and his girlfriend Linda on a romantic trip to a cabin in the woods. After they arrive, Ash discovers an archeological recording of a professor reading an excerpt from the Necronomicon, an occult tome. After the passage is read, all hell literally breaks loose. There are only a handful of films that make watching gore and violence so much fun, and Evil Dead II is chief among them. The character of Ash, played by cult-movie hero, Bruce Campbell is really created in this film. He is the cocky, out of his depth everyman that we love to watch get knocked around. Evil Dead II would spawn a direct sequel in Army of Darkness, a throwback to the works of Ray Harryhausen, featuring Ash fighting monsters in a medieval world. These films would go on to inspire an off-Broadway musical, a remake, three video games, a comic book series and several pop culture references, the most recent of which was Cabin in the Woods. Although, while both The Evil Dead and Army of Darkness are enjoyable, if you’ve never seen the series before, I have to recommend Evil Dead II to start,for its intimate moments of horror, its pitch black comedy and its goofy performance from the incomparable Bruce Campbell.
ON TO HORROR MOVIE MATTERS #14 BRAM STOKER’S DRACULA 1992, DIR. FRANCIS FORD COPPOLA