In this review, I will be talking a little bit about the popular TV Series, The Walking Dead. Now, my knowledge of this show is VERY limited, so please correct me if I make any mistakes concerning the show in the comments. The 2007 film The Mist is based on a novella of the same name by none other then Stephen King, who's popping up REALLY frequently in my reviews. The basic premise of the film is that a group of townspeople become trapped inside a grocery store when a mysterious mist that contains monsters engulfs the town. The survivors inside the store have to find a way to fend off the monsters, but the store falls into chaos as people begin to fight amongst each other, each having different ideas. There will be some spoilers in my review, so read at your own caution, but the spoilers won't detract from the movie at all.
The conflicts among the people is the connection to The Walking Dead I will touch on slightly. So in the later seasons of the show, we are presented with different types of survivor colonies that are run in different ways, like the dictatorship run by The Governor. And although the show is about a zombie apocalypse, it can also be said that the zombies are just a medium used to show how different people will act in a life-or-death situation. This sort of psychological thrillers have always interested me quite a bit, and that is essentially what the film is mainly about.
The Mist works to show the viewers different people acting differently and even erratically in a dangerous situation. When the mist first encompasses the town, a group of "rationalists" (for a lack of better word) are the first to speak up. Led by Brent Norton, a lawyer, these people refuse to believe that there is anything supernatural about the mist (despite there being evidence), out of intellectual stubbornness and makes a "rational" (or rational in a normal situation) choice of leaving the store to get help, only to never return, presumably killed by the monsters. Interestingly enough, a woman leaves the store just as the mist begins to envelop the town to rescue her kids, and despite the monsters, she is revealed to have survived with her two kids at the end of the film.
Mrs. Carmody is a constant antagonistic figure in the film. As a religious zealot, she constantly preaches about how this mist is the apocalypse and how there is no survival for the sinners (everyone). Towards the end of the film, almost everyone in the store begins to actually believe in her words, and she essentially takes over as a theocratic dictator, demanding daily sacrifices to keep the monsters at bay "in the name of God". Interestingly enough Mrs. Carmody and all of her followers have definitely survived the monsters by staying inside the store at the end of the film, compared to the "protagonists" of the film (who I will discuss in the next paragraph).
The main cast of characters: David Drayton, Amanda Dumfries, Ollie Weeks, and Dan Miller take control of the store for the majority of the film, working to defend against the creatures that are outside, and eventually venturing outside the store to find supplies and eventually leaves the store altogether. They are considered to be the protagonists of the story as they are the ones that stay strong and are willing to stay optimistic (to a point) and fight against these monsters for survival. Unfortunately, their optimism runs out, and David has to kill the four other people (one of whom is his son Billy) who left the store with him, when they run out of options, leaving David a broken man.
It is interesting to see how different people react to a strange situation. In the film, all three groups of people succeed to a certain extent, and although there are clear protagonist-type figures in the form of David, Amanda, Ollie, and Dan, it seems as though that Mrs. Carmody's religious zealots and the "rationalists" are potentially more successful in surviving the monsters (although we do only see that one woman survive from the rationalist group). I'm still not quite sure myself what the movie was trying to communicate, but it is clear that it was going for a psychological angle where it intended to delve into human psychology and how real-life people would react in this situation, which I think they did represent very accurately, as people will go crazy and fight among each other in a stressful situation (this sort of behaviour is referred to as cabin fever).
It was, overall, a very enjoyable film. The monsters are genuinely creepy, and I do like that the movie (and most likely the book as well) mentioned briefly that the monsters were from an another dimension, making a (possible) connection to King's Dark Tower novels. The characters were all very interesting, making the irritating characters very much so, and keeping the likable "hero" characters very likable as well to contrast against the characters who are clearly meant to be antagonistic. I really did enjoy this film, and from my research, it seems that majority of the people who watched this movie agrees. I genuinely cannot think of a single thing I disliked about this film. The Mist gets a fantastic rating of 5/5.
So that was my review of the 2007 film, The Mist. I think my next post will be a novel review (yes, I'm finally doing one of those), although I still haven't quite decided on a novel yet. As always, thank you for reading my blog, and I always will enjoy hearing from all of you, so if you have any comments, feedbacks, opinions, suggestions, etc., please feel free to comment, and I WILL respond to ALL comments!
Thanks for the review. I would have liked to hear more about your thoughts on how different characters react and what that says about human nature. Perhaps you could put them into categories. Do you think the portrayals were accurate?
ReplyDeleteThank you so much for commenting! This does mean so much to me! I did put them into categories in a sense. I divided them up by their character styles and how they reacted and such.
DeleteI really would have loved to go on more about human nature, but I know very little to almost none about psychology, so I felt that it wasn't particularly my place. If I were to say something about human nature, I guess it would be that stress can either bring out the best or the worst in us. The first group of "rationalists" acted the way they normally would, worsened by their stubbornness and refused to even consider another choice. Mrs. Carmody, the religious woman originally was just outspoken and irritating, but became more and more violent as the film went on, essentially taking over the store as a dictator of sorts and demanding murder of innocents on a daily basis. Finally, although the protagonist characters do remain the strong figures throughout the film, at the end, we slowly begin see THEM fall apart as well. This is especially evident in David, who actually kills his own son, knowing fully well that he would be the only survivor. The film does a good job showing that while stressful situations can bring people together, it can also tear them apart, showing many of the characters eventually succumbing to some form of madness.
I also think that all of the people's reactions were more or less accurate. The "rationalists" are the ones that consider themselves to be 'intellectuals', and therefore are arrogant enough to consider their views the only correct ones. While I can't speak for the religious population, I assume that they would turn towards God for answers, and while Mrs. Carmody is a very radical case, I believe there are people like her in the world. Finally, the protagonist characters are there so we can have someone to rally behind. And I do think that in situations like those, there will be people who will take charge, but eventually, they will most likely end up falling victim to the mental stress. Although the film may have exaggerated some of the characters, I still think they managed to show it very effectively. The exaggerated psychology works with the film because the physical danger is a supernatural one, and the two different types of dangers work well together to become deadly threats.
Overall, I think that the movie did an amazing job portraying human nature and psyche, and in order to do so, they incorporated Cabin Fever, a claustrophobic reaction in which people in confined spaces for long periods of time begins to become mentally fragile, irritable, and even violence. The film used Cabin Fever well to represent another side of the conflict, which I liked. It is always better for a film to have a psychological conflict as well as a physical conflict.
SIDE NOTE: There is actually a Stephen King novel (turned into a VERY good movie), "Misery", that also portrays both physical and psychological conflict excellently, and if you are interested in psychological horror/thrillers, I recommend "Misery" and even "The Shining" (the novel because it actually focuses heavily on Cabin Fever, much more then the film), as both novels do focus quite a bit on the psychological aspect. I personally do enjoy psychological horror/thrillers, so those two are definitely some of my favourite King novels. "IT" is also another good novel involving psychology, mainly fear as well. So we can see that Stephen King uses a lot of psychology in his works, and perhaps that is why people are so attracted to his works.