By Sabrina Cognata

You know, I had high hopes for this film.  I actually said out loud, “How bad can it be?”  Terrible.  It wasn’t that the storyline sucked or the acting was bad.  It was just entirely too long.  Ever watch a movie where you start to self edit it about halfway though thinking to yourself, “Uh, this scene is entirely unnecessary.”  This two hour flick could easily have been cut down to about an hour.  I hate to admit that because I sort of thought I would enjoy Thomas Jane on the silver screen for that long, but about an hour into it I kept praying the movie would hurry up and end so I could use the bathroom.

Artist David Drayton’s (Thomas Jane) upper east coast house is ravaged during a storm.  The morning after he takes his son, Billy (Nathan Gamble) and his crappy, know-it-all neighbor, Brent Norton (Andre Braugher) into town to pick up supplies to fix the mess the storm made.  Once they get to the town grocery store a giant mist covers the city.  A useless member of the community runs into the store screaming that the MIST has sucked up another stupid town member.  AHHH, REAL MONSTERS!  At first no one believes that there’re things creeping in the mist, but the bag boy gets sucked into the stupid mist by a giant tentacled monster and people have to start using their noggins.

David tries telling Brent about the monsters in the mist, but Brent thinks he’s being mocked by David and the other townies so he flips out.  While this is going on the woman considered the town wacko, Mrs. Carmody (Marcia Gay Harden), starts preaching that these mutantesque monsters attacking them are biblical plagues because society as a whole has reached the end of days.  Hello small town America, welcome to Revelations.  Meanwhile, Brent gathers a group of people that flip off everyone saying there are monsters in the Mist.  A group of them attempts to leave the store and one of them ties a rope around himself and attempts to run to a truck and grab a shotgun, about 200 yards into the rope they end up dragging half a body back towards the store. 


By this time the son is setting and more pterodactyl type creatures and giant monster bugs attack the store and break through the grass.  Everyone in the store goes bonkers and they accidentally set the store on fire and one of the members of the mob.  David feels responsible for this badly burned guy and he decides to get a group together and head to the pharmacy next door.  He leaves his son and car keys with the new teacher in town, Amanda (Laurie Holden) and tells her to take care of his son as though he were her own if David fails to return.  While in the pharmacy it becomes clear that these creatures are the fault of the army base near the town due to something called Project Arrowhead. After David and his emergency rescue group fight more monsters and return to the store he approaches one of the military men in the store.  The solider laments and says he’s sure it has something to do with what scientists have been working on.  Some white trash dude overhears this and tells crazy Mrs. Carmody and she decides to sacrifice the soldier to the monster to punish him.  Holy Christ, are you bored and annoyed yet?

David, Billy, Amanda, some old lady and old man and the store clerk that happens to be a sharp shooter decide to escape in the middle of the night.  Mrs. Carmody catches them and tries to sacrifice David’s son Billy to the monster.  The sharp shooter, Ollie (Toby Jones), uses his skills and kills Mrs. Carmody.  It was probably the best part of the movie because it shut her biblical ass up.  Finally, David and his team race to his sports utility vehicle and the ones that make it to the car start driving.  Finally, the car runs out of gas and David has the gun and the opportunity to put the people in the car out of their misery before the monsters eat them.  After he kills, Amanda, his son and the old man and old woman he runs out of bullets.  Then David cries and screams a lot as he gets out of the car expecting the monsters to eat him and he sees the U.S. Army roll by as they have come to save the day.  Uh, good going idiot. 


Honestly, I cannot see American audiences liking the ending of this story.  I’m not saying people need a fairy tale ending, but Jesus, someone do David a favor and kill him to put him out of his misery.  Personally, I guess people should feel like David is lucky and he gets a clean slate now that his entire family is dead.  I think.  Whatever.