Online only: 'The Mist' a frightening depiction of human panic

Stephen King and Frank Darabont, director of King-penned movies "The Shawshank Redemption" and "The Green Mile," have a joke that Darabont's directing career will stall unless King writes more "period prison stories."\nNow with "The Mist," that joke can be revised to just "stories."\nBased off of King's horror novella "The Mist," the movie takes place in a small town after a violent thunderstorm, when a strange mist begins to drift out over a nearby lake. David Drayton (Thomas Jane), a local artist whose house has suffered damages, takes his son (Nathan Gamble) and his neighbor (Andre Braugher) to the grocery store, which is crowded after the storm. While waiting in line to check out, one of the townsfolk comes sprinting in and yelling about "something in the mist." After the initial shock, one man flees to his truck, only to be attacked by the creatures lurking in the mist. Those left in the store find they can't escape. They begin to grow restless, taking sides about what to do, now being left to their own devices for survival.\nWith this latest King film, Darabont shows the audience why he has been pushing for making a film adaptation of "The Mist" for the past decade. Adding his own creative twists to King's novella, Darabont gives this film its own distinctive identity. In some parts of the story, like the emotional relationship between Drayton and Amanda Dumfries, Darabont holds back from the novella. In others, like the grim climactic ending, he one-ups King. \nProbably the strongest aspect of the story-telling in "The Mist" comes from King's penchant for everything psychological. The characters are clouded in mystery and fear, and in turn they take sides and become just as much of a threat to each other as whatever it is they have to deal with outside. And a little bit of that fear and uncertainty rubs off on the audience. In the beginning of the movie, the story's protagonist seems like the one who's crazed. Near the end of the film, the town Bible-thumper, played by scene-stealer Marcia Gay Harden, seems to have enough reason for why the townsfolk should hold a human sacrifice.\nWhile the creatures in the mist are relatively scary, the real fear comes from the elements of mystery and the unknown. The waiting and uncertainty make "The Mist" frightening for what it is: a mirror of human panic.