David Jensen – Through the Shattered Lens

Based on a novella by Stephen King, The Mist opens the morning after a sudden thunderstorm in Maine. Artist David Drayton (Thomas Jane) steps outside and sees that a tree has crashed through one of his front windows. Meanwhile, his neighbor, attorney Brent Norton (Andre Braugher), stares at the tree that has crushed his car. Though David and Brent are not exactly on friendly terms, the storm briefly brings them together. When David says that he’s going into town to pick up supplies, Norton asks if he can come with him. David’s wife stays back at the house while David drives his son (Nathan Gamble) and Brent to the local grocery store. Before David leaves, he notices a thick mist moving over a nearby lake.

The entire town is without power and the grocery store is crowded. Three soldiers, who are picking up supplies before going on leave, are told that the leave has been abruptly canceled. Once the mist surrounds the store, it soon becomes obvious why that is. There are monsters in the mist and David, Norton, and several others find themselves trapped in the store. Going outside, as some insist on doing, only leads to death at the hands of the Lovecraftian monsters that inhabit the mist.

The Mist was first released in 2007 and I have to admit that I didn’t care much for it the first time that I saw it. I thought that some of the performances were a bit too histrionic and the film’s dark ending was almost too portentous to be credible. When I first saw it, I thought the film was almost trying too hard with the tragic conclusion. However, when I recently rewatched the film, I discovered that it had grown on me. I was better able to appreciate the fact that the monsters were both ludicrous and deadly at the same time. Performances that once seemed over-the-top in 2007 now seemed almost subtle when compared to how I’ve seen people actually behave in the real world over the past ten years. Once you’ve been yelled at for not wearing a mask while jogging, it’s a lot easier to buy the idea of a bunch of people in a grocery store losing their collective minds. Even the film’s dark ending now seemed like the only honest way the film could have ended.

The Mist is a film that plays much differently in a post-COVID world. The idea of innocent people losing their lives because of an accident at a government lab no longer seems all that unbelievable. The argument about whether or not to leave the store mirrored many of the same arguments that I heard during the COVID lockdowns. If Mrs. Carmody (Marcia Gay Harden) and her followers originally seemed like standard Stephen King religious fanatics, Carmody now brings to mind the loathsome Randi Weingarten and her insistence that the only way to defeat COVID was to sacrifice the future of the young. Even the film’s final moments of self-destruction reflected the attitude that many had in 2020, that the situation was hopeless and that there was no escape beyond waiting for the world to end. The final image of one man, driven mad and screaming, brings to mind both the fate of the typical Lovecraftian explorer and also the excesses of the COVID era. That Stephen King continues to be one of the major defenders of these excesses brings a wonderful irony to the film’s subtext.

The Mist has definitely grown on me. It still has its flaws but those flaws are less of a problem now than they were in 2007. In 2007, The Mist seemed overlong. In 2026, that 2-hour running time feels like a relief from the slow-moving miniseries that have become a signature part of the streaming age. Even Thomas Jane’s performance, which seemed rather stiff when I first saw the movie, has improved in hindsight. His tight-jawed stoicism makes his eventual breakdown all the more effective. Everyone reaches the limit, the film seems to be saying.

The Mist is a film that has aged well. It’s one of the better Stephen King adaptations, one that largely stays true to the source material while still having the courage to develop its own identity. The first time I saw it, I was wrong about The Mist. It’s a film that deserves to be remembered as one of the most relevant horror films of the past 20 years.

In December of 1944, with the world at war and Christmas approaching, a small U.S. Army Intelligence squad is sent to a deserted chateau near the German lines. The squad, which was decimated during the Battle of the Bulge, is made up of six young soldiers who all have genius IQs. They’ve been hardened by war but they’re still young enough to have some hope for the future. Leading them is “Mother” Wilkinson (Gary Sinise), an officer who cares about his men but who has been mentally struggling with not only the war but also with the recent death of a child back home.

At first, the chateau seems like a perfect sanctuary, a place to wait for the war to end. But then the Americans discover that there is a regiment of German soldiers nearby. The Germans are just as young as the Americans and when the two groups meet each other, they don’t fire their guns but instead have a snowball fight. The Germans say that they know the war is about to end and that they want to surrender before the Russians arrive. However, the Germans are worried about their families back home and what will happen when word gets back that they’ve surrendered. They request a staged fight so that it will appear that they were captured in combat. Almost everyone is down with the plan but it turns out that it’s not easy to fake a war in the middle of a real one.

Based on a novel by William Wharton, A Midnight Clear is one of the best Christmas films that hardly anyone seems to have heard of. It’s a war film that is more concerned with the men who fight the wars than with the battles. Along with Sinise, the ensemble cast includes Ethan Hawke, Peter Berg, Kevin Dillon, Ayre Gross, Frank Whaley, and John C. McGinley and all of them make an impression, bringing their characters to life. By the end of the movie, you feel like you know each member of the squad and their individual fates hit you hard. Some of them make it to the next Christmas and tragically, some of them don’t. The film starts out almost gently and all of the soldiers are so intent on just letting the war end while they hide out at the chateau that you find yourself believing that it could actually happen. When reality intrudes, it’s tragic and poignant. Intelligently directed by Keith Gordon (making his directorial debut), A Midnight Clear is an unforgettable anti-war story that has an amazing final shot. A Midnight Clear makes an impression on Christmas and every other day.