The Mist

The Mist
Starring Thomas Jane, Marcia Gay Harden, Laurie Holden, Alexa Davalos & Toby Jones

"The Mist," a collaborative film based on a Stephen King short story, follows the story of one small town supermarket-goers who find themselves trapped behind cartons of milk, cash registers, and buy-one-get-one-free sales when a mysterious mist comes their way. It's not just any old fog; this is something supernatural - a killer. But what does this mist hold? As the always entertaining Marcia Gay Harden, who single-handedly holds this movie up, says, "It's death."

Of course, when a story holds a dangerous secret, like what is inside the mist - oh, don't say "fog"; the actors never do - an audience creates its own assumptions about what is killing the people of this small town Maine (of course, a King detail). Aliens? Demons? Vampires? Ghosts? Who knows! I would have loved to see nothing in the mist - not that nothing was killing the people but that there was no CGI. This could have been a great ode to old time thrillers if we didn't see the strange looking 3-D monsters. They weren't even scary. It was kind of like "Jurassic Park" meets "Jumanji."

Led by Thomas Jane, half the cast flops, while the other half pull their weight and then some. Harden is phenomenal as the Old Testament-preaching, psychopathic Mrs. Carmody who rallies against Jane's people and tries to stop everyone from leaving the supermarket. She also goes on a mission of God to find a sacrifice. This leads to bloodshed. "Infamous'" Toby Jones is very likable as is "Feast of Love's" Alexa Davalos. Other than those three, no one really shines, and Jane doesn't have a good scene until the end.

The most fascinating parts of "The Mist" were it's character struggles and debacles. Harden plays such a powerfully horrible woman that the audience cheered when she got her share of karma. Also, the last five minutes are incredibly powerful and irrevocable, allowing "The Mist" to not be lost from our memories.

Harden is a star. Jane is lackluster. And the film is fun to watch.

Grade: C+

1408

1408

Starring John Cusack & Samuel L. Jackson

Talk about a movie that goes from creepy to screwy in a matter of seconds, or should I say within the hour that Mike Enslin (John Cusack) is trapped in room 1408 of the Dolphin Hotel in New York City. Why did Mr. Enslin even think about going into the said room, supposed to be haunted, after Jackson's hotel owner, Gerald Olin, warned him profusely? He's a writer who investigates the scariest places in America. Now he found a room, got the spiel by Mr. Olin, and is persistent on staying in the room over night. Once in the room, he's introduced to its eerie occurrences - the clock is a countdown (one hour), he hears strange noises, he detects blood stains all over the entire room from past deaths (56 to be exact), and a painting moves to its side, all on its own. These ghostly effects take a grip on the viewer, creating a great sense of paranoia. However, that was only the first twenty minutes of the film, and its a long, gruelingly horrible road to the end.

As Enslin starts to deteriorate and go insane inside 1408, Cusack has his moments of good acting. The rest is full of lines that are too predictably cliche that a burst of laughter is well needed. The movie is Enslin in the room. That is it. He talks to his voice recorder too who acts like a character only it doesn't work as one at all. The rest of the cast is unmentionable because they're barely a part of the film; even Jackson can't make this movie cool.

After the twenty minutes of descent paranoia, "1408" evolves into a room of complete mayhem and chaotic, cinematic malfunctions. The room takes Enslin to different periods in his life which we don't really care about, it takes him to a cliche "Wizard of Oz" dream effect that's not a dream at all, so it's a twist on a cliche making it a cliche in a way, and (SPOILER) though everyone that's trapped in 1408 has died in some grotesque way, Enslin survives, of course, and ruins the whole movie - as if it wasn't already a complete and utter mess.

The flick is based on a Stephen King short story, and it should have stayed in pages, not the screen.

Grade: D-