The Mist

This is probably one of the worst movies I have watched in a very long time. Right off the bat, I would give it a 5.5/10. It was made worse by the knowledge that the story could have been so much more, but lost all of its subtlety in the sledgehammer narrative.

Basically, The Mist is about this all-obscuring mist that settles over a town (shouldn't it be a fog, really?). This insidious mist is also home to a host of deadly creatures that kill everything (presumably, though only humans were featured in the movie). As the story progresses, the audience is shown the full spectrum of human ugliness arising from people being put in a highly stressful situation.

The premise is perhaps where the good stuff ends. The movie narrative is plagued by loopholes and has about as much finesse as your average sledgehammer. For example, what do you do when you're in a (seemingly) safe place full of food and there's a supposedly deadly mist outside? You go out and try to get help. If a dangerous-looking but non-aggressive creature barges into your area? You attack it (the American way). When all else fails? You turn to your nearest religious leader. All that, within the space of three days.

By the presentation of this sequence of events, the show has effectively turned a story about humans being pushed to the brink and beyond into one showcasing the mindless fervor of religious zealots and the ugliness of mob thinking. The snide commentary on human nature has turned into devolving a bunch of people into a gibbering mindless mob.

Of course, the show has a saving grace: It's ending is twisted and very much ironic. As with the rest of the show the real reason for a bunch of people (having hope in the intrinsic goodness of humanity into those losing all hope) going nuts was not really explained. It merely showcased their cowardice and readily faltering willpower. I also loved the Silent Hill moment, with the siren before the fog rolled in.

All this was combined with some rather budget special effects that not only looked false, but relied heavily upon the motif of the mist to obscure the true details of what was going on. Of course, I shall not bother elaborating on how wrong it is to have yet another Doom-style open-portal-to-hellish-dimension-hence-releasing-deadly-creatures premise. So yeah. 5.5/10.