I rewatched The Mist recently (Frank Darabont version)

The Mist made a big splash when it came out back in 2o07. Here at B2W, Halloween is traditionally horror month, so I’ve been talking about the genre a lot with Bangers. I thought it would be fun to put an ‘old’ horror movie like it under the microscope to see how it stands up, seventeen years on. But you can also find other horror case studies and articles here, too:

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So, back in the day I watched The Mist at the cinema, then again on DVD a few months later. (I even rented it from Blockbuster … wow! How things have changed in such a short time).

In short, I enjoyed it both times and felt it was a good example of a Horror blockbuster movie. As life is wont to, I forgot all about it. Then my youngest told me she wanted to watch as many Horror movies as possible.

We started with classics like Carrie and The Shining. This lead my kid to say she wanted to watch Stephen King’s entire back catalogue, hence us hunkering down to watch The Mist.

The Mist has dated BIG TIME

I was not expecting The Mist to ignite any particular urges to blog this Halloween. Though not a ‘classic’, I remembered it as an enjoyable movie, with great shot composition, directing and actor performances.

I’ve written many times before on this blog that our opinions may change when we revisit old movies and TV shows. This is because society moves on, yet that movie or TV show is basically ‘frozen’ in time. This means movies and TV shows may not age well when it comes to technology, especially considering the epic changes of the last five years or so.

However, movies and TV shows may also not age well when it comes to thematics.  This is most obvious in comedy, but can affect horror in very obvious fashion as well.

First up, the obvious: CGI

The Mist was big budget, so of course it has the best CGI money can buy … for 2007!!

I recalled the sucker-like tentacles under the store’s warehouse as threatening and scary. Yet revisiting that scene, I discovered those tentacles are comically bad in the 2020s! It’s so clear the actors are acting with NOTHING there. Poor Toby Jones has to jump over a tentacle at one point. He barely clears the floor, it’s hilarious!

CGI, animation & tech are constantly in flux, so we think how we remember a movie in our minds is how it ACTUALLY was … but re-watching old movies shows what a fallacy this is. Oops!

A reminder: The Mist was ‘only’ 2007. Most of us think of 2007 as very recent, but it is worth remembering it was actually seventeen years ago. I have kids older than that movie! But this is how quickly CGI – and our expectations of how we relate to it – change. My youngest watched the tentacle scene and was not scared even a little bit. She was literally laughing!

This is why I always recommend Bangers stay away from ‘Buuuuuut the original was PERFECT!’ BS claims online when it comes to remakes & reboots. It is an amateur move that reveals writers know zilch about target audience preferences. Remember, these change, decade on decade, and even year on year.

Now: onto thematics in The Mist

Female Characters

Unusually for the early-to-mid 00s we have a female antagonist in Mrs Carmody the crazy Revelations lady. This was a significant point in its favour. This also figures because ‘The Age of The Antihero’ began around this time, so we can see it in real-time in The Mist.

But yet again for the early-to-mid 00s we see the dreaded ‘girl character’ – the female character versus the group of highly differentiated male characters. That one female lead’s only job seems to be looking after the kid in the grocery store! Ugh. The rest of the women seem to be there only to die or kill themselves.

Even worse: it’s the men who constantly go off to strategise with the women screaming and running around like headless chickens. One even lies on the floor begging the kid to get out the way of a monster??? Puhlease!! I’ve written about this phenomenon about female leads in the early-to-mid 00s before in television thrillers, HERE.

Next: race and characterisation

Another aspect that dates The Mist very badly is its treatment of black characters. The lack of black characters with a good portion of screen-time is obvious. Most are walk-ons, if that. I don’t recall there being any Asian (South or East) characters of note, either.

The awesome, late Andre Braugher does the best he can with his character Brent Norton, an antagonistic force in the first half. He’s a great actor with gravitas and delivers an excellent performance.

But writing-wise, Norton’s belief the white characters are trying to humiliate him in the midst of an emergency is bizarre via a modern lens. We’re supposed to see him as an overly-privileged, middle-aged blowhard like any white man … but we are now in a completely different place society-wise than 2007.

Back then, Barack Obama was yet take the White House in 2008. However, there was an optimism in the 90s and 00s  that ‘racism was over’. I recall growing up hearing white people talk about ‘post-racism’ with zero irony. In short, we were fooling ourselves big time (as we know now in the post-MAGA age).

This means we can see this in action with Norton’s character

If such a character was written in the 2020s, I’d certainly hope as a script editor the writer was more sensitive to the complexities of race. Now, middle-class, well-off, well-educated black people like Norton obviously exist in real life. Some of them may indeed be blowhards and/or have certain levels of privilege in certain situations. (The lesson is not ‘write all black characters as perfect’ – that would make no sense. It’s also not what black members of the audience want).

But it is worth remembering we’re also now in the post-BLM protests age. White people now realise – or at least should realise – there is an advantage to being white in a system built by white people (aka ‘white privilege’). This means such situations like Norton’s in the grocery store could be written – and played – with much more complexity.

As an example, if Norton thought the white characters were trying to take ADVANTAGE of the emergency situation to kill him??

Now THAT could have been compelling for modern viewers, even invoking the true story of Detroit (2017), starring John Boyega. Based on the Algiers Motel incident during Detroit’s 1967 12th Street Riot, Detroit’s release commemorated the 50th anniversary of the atrocity. 

Given this dark history by police officers, it would obviously be on Norton’s mind that white racist civilians may try and kill him. It would be very easy to blame on the ‘monsters’, plus it’s clear Norton is not well-liked in town anyway. This could be a very compelling and authentic addition to a modern remake … Plus modern audiences would be able to follow it, even without knowledge of the Algiers Motel Incident. (In contrast, we likely would have struggled back in 2007 to see this element).

Trigger Warning: Suicide in The Mist

Unusually, there’s THREE suicides here. There is the overdose by the woman in the grocery store, which is presented in a low-key way without any fanfare. However,  the hangings of the soldiers in the warehouse are graphic and fly in the face of warnings and writers’ advice by organisations like the Samaritans.

Of course, the suicides of these lesser characters set up THAT gut-punch ending where David kills his son and the three remaining survivors at the end of the movie … only to discover he’d waited a couple of extra minutes they all could’ve been rescued!

There’s significant dramatic irony here that’s employed with panache. I even recall loving that ending back in 2007. HOWEVER – now I understand a lot more about depictions of suicide on screen, plus my own history of suicidal ideation – I ask myself what this ending is trying to SAY?

Characters Doing Things To Advance (Or End) The Plot

It now feels to me like AN ENDING TO A STORY rather than an organic piece of characterisation. The filmmakers do a good job of showing us they can’t get out of the mist but pressingly, David is set up to be a practical thinker. This leads me to an uncomfortable question:

Would David *really* decide to kill the kid & his friends *right now*?

It’s important to note that suicide as a (rational) response to abject peril is different to suicide as a result of mental illness. But David wanted to save his kid no matter what … Yet we are asked to believe he wouldn’t wait until the very last possible second to do this?

After all, David has literally faced down monsters to save his son all the way through the movie! Yet he NOW he decides to kill him when they’re NOT being attacked?? David and friends managed to brave it through the horrors in the pharmacy, car park, the roads. They even drive straight past a gigantic monster at one point.

This is what I mean when I say in the 00s characters often did things that went against their characterisation in service of the plot.

Finally: by having the army come literally out of the mist seconds later armed with flamethrowers and saved refugees … what is the message here? That suicide is the coward’s way out? (Also, if the soldiers have flame throwers and can deal with the monsters, why the panic and lack of comms earlier?).

The woman in the grocery store is a problem, too

These musings are compounded by the shot of the woman who left the grocery store ahead of David to fetch her kids. No one would help her or go with her – including David. At home, we assume she will die trying to reach them.

Seeing her on the back of the truck, safe with her kids and the soldiers contrasted against David’s screams of horror IS a fantastic ending … but it’s shitty thematics. Had The Mist been made in the 2020s, I would bet real money the Twitterati would be in abject uproar (and they’d be right).

Now, Stephen King praised the ‘nihilistic’ ending, saying he even preferred it to his novella which finishes on a more hopeful light.

Myself, I love a bit of nihilism too! If you’ve read any of my crime thrillers, you will know the protagonists DON’T always win. However, I do think writers can channel both nihilism and dramatic irony without falling back on stigmatising messages about suicide.

MORE: How To Challenge Stigma In Your Writing

Last Points

Look, I enjoyed The Mist at the time and there’s still plenty to enjoy about it now. However, it’s a great case study that shows how society moves on and how NO old movie is ever ‘perfect’. What’s more, we don’t have to chastise ourselves for liking it in the first place, either. What’s good at the time is good at the time, but storytelling is constantly in flux … just like society is.

If you have revisited one lately, what do YOU think Of your fave old movie or TV show in the 2020s?