Rating: 2/5
Oh My Horror 2025 | 21/52 | Creature Features
Bridgton, Maine David Drayton is an artist who paints images for movie posters. A framed painting of the poster from The Thing hangs on his wall, and he’s working on a painting of the Gunslinger Roland from The Dark Tower series. He uses the back of his hand as his paint palette, pulling whites to outline the symbolic Rose that holds the Tower in place. Outside, a thunderstorm rages. A lightning strike knocks the power out—David, his wife, Stephanie, and their son, Billy, light candles and head downstairs. A tree crashes through the upstairs window where David painted, destroying the Dark Tower painting.
The next day, David and Billy survey the damage inside and out. The uprooted tree was the one David’s grandfather planted. Their neighbor, Brent Norton, had a dead tree that fell and demolished the boathouse, so David went to Brent to exchange insurance information. Across the way, a mist descends from the Longfellow Mountains and across Long Lake. With the power still out and food going bad, David decides to head into town and grab some groceries. He brings Billy and Brent, whose car was destroyed by yet another felled tree. On the way, they pass CMP trucks and multiple military convoys from the Arrowhead base up on the mountain, a secretive military project that even the locals know little about.
At the store, David can’t get cell reception. When he tries the pay phone, he also can’t get through. Once inside, we meet the folks who will cause most problems throughout the movie. The store’s backup generator only keeps the food cold—everything else is down, making the already long lines at checkout longer. The military police arrive to round up any soldiers on leave. The klaxon sounds. Outside, a local named Dan Miller runs towards the store, his face bloodied. Once inside, he warns everyone that there is something in the mist, and it’s already taken John Lee, and they need to barricade inside. The fog rolls into town, enveloping the parking lot. A man tries to run out to his car, but once the mist overtakes him, we hear his terrified screams.
The store shakes as it is enveloped in mist. Ambrose Cornell says the mill must’ve blown up. Mrs. Carmody says it’s the end of days. Whatever it is, it has them trapped and is trying to get in.
Frank Darabont is the director who perhaps best understands how to adapt Stephen King’s stories to King’s liking. Here, we have a classic King setup: a group of single-trait characters who can barely stand one other, forced to work together or die. If you’ve seen The Walking Dead, you’ll recognize several faces of folks Darabont likes to work with regularly. I didn’t know Andre Braugher was in this! That was a pleasant surprise.
Because we need regular action beats, people make the most belligerently stupid choices imaginable, putting themselves and others at risk. The characters are so fragile that every sentence from another person’s mouth is a personal affront. I get it—it’s a political allegory for the US and how the culture war has overshadowed the much greater threats to our survival. But it’s so graceless and ham-fisted, spending SO MUCH TIME hitting the same beats. It’s exhausting.
The movie has some fun action-horror sequences when it abandons its half-cocked moralizing. Some of the staging of the action scenes is rough. I don’t care about the crappy CGI creature effects, but the cast isn’t prepared to act like the CGI creature effects are in the room with them. They do better with the more “grounded” effects. Also, the practical gore effects help sell the danger, and some look outstanding.
Like much of King’s work, the film references his other books, most notably The Dark Tower. I won’t spoil anything, but knowing those books gives you a greater sense of what’s happening in this movie.
I know some folks are divided on the ending. I think it’s thematically appropriate, and it increased my score.
I appreciate Darabont, but I would be lying if I said I loved any of his movies. But that has more to do with the material he’s adapting than his abilities as a director. I hear the monochrome cut of the film is superior, but I don’t think I’ll be checking it out anytime soon.