It's death out there

"It's death out there." Mrs Carmody's not wrong: the mist that's engulfed the town is no mere change in the weather. But she's not entirely right either: for completely different reasons, it's equally dangerous inside the grocery store that's become her refuge.

Like most self-respecting genre films ('28 Days Later', 'Dawn of the Dead', 'The Thing'), 'The Mist' is almost less about the monsters out there than it is about the human survivors. As the terror encroaches (and it sure as hell does), it's not long before the trapped turn on each other, and their most base instincts take control.

Inside the Food Market of this small town, it's the religious whackjob Carmody who sets off the infighting, preaching Armageddon, preying on the fears and uncertainties of the other shoppers who just want some answers. It’s not long before she's drowned out the voices of reason, led by commercial artist David Drayton. Advocating action rather than prayer — or human sacrifice — he and a ragtag group of geriatrics, school teachers and store assistants try to make sense of what the hell is going on. But is escape — or even survival — possible as the unknown — but lethal — creatures lurk outside?

The answer is surprising and truly devastating — even more so than anything else writer/director Frank Darabont unleashes during his dark and powerful adaptation of a 1980 Stephen King novella. Using the 1980 source material, the man behind 'The Shawshank Redemption' and 'The Green Mile' films provides incisive and frightening commentary on Bush's USA (the web spun by organised religion, the culture of fear, and the war on the unknown).

But the humans of 'The Mist' are only as horrifying as the monsters themselves. And here too the man better known for drama excels. Despite an early misstep where he shows too much too soon, Darabont carefully lifts the mist, expertly teasing us with glimpses, occasionally leaving us as bewildered and disoriented as his characters, all the while leading us further into his twisted, imagined world. That it seems so real is genuinely frightening.