Critics Scoreboard
All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...
Average Critic Score:
58
(29 sources)
58
(29 sources)
-
88
Chicago Tribune
Good and creepy, The Mist comes from a Stephen King novella and is more the shape, size and quality of the recent "1408," likewise taken from a King story, than anything in the persistently fashionable charnel house inhabited by the "Saw" and "Hostel" franchises. Read Full Review » -
88
ReelViews
What a horror film SHOULD be - dark, tense, and punctuated by just enough gore to keep the viewer's flinch reflex intact. Read Full Review » -
83
The Onion (A.V. Club)
What is surprising is how he (Darabont) rebounds from his weak, awkwardly compressed opening to produce one of the scariest King films since Stanley Kubrick's "The Shining." Read Full Review » -
83
Entertainment Weekly
There's a grim modern parable to be read into the dangerous effects of the gospel-preaching local crazy lady Mrs. Carmody (brilliantly played by a hellfire Marcia Gay Harden) on a congregation of the fearful. Read Full Review » -
83
Portland Oregonian
In the parlance of the kids today, the movie totally goes there. Read Full Review » -
80
Empire
Criminally overlooked in the States, this is one of the best horror movies of the last few years. Read Full Review » -
80
Film Threat
I think this one of the first King movies to legitimately give me the creeps. Read Full Review » -
75
San Francisco Chronicle
While it's riveting throughout, The Mist is a bit bloated. Read Full Review » -
75
-
75
Miami Herald
It's a B-movie with A-list aspirations, and it's at its best when it's not trying to be something it isn't. Read Full Review » -
70
Chicago Reader
Darabont doesn't match the sly cultural commentary of "The Host," a recent Korean import that also revamped the giant-monster genre, but his grocery-store survival drama, dominated by Marcia Gay Harden as a shrill fundamentalist, serves as a crude but effective allegory for post-9/11 America. Read Full Review » -
67
Seattle Post-Intelligencer
The scenes that really work are the ones that take place outside the supermarket, in the beginning and at the end of the film. In fact, the "Twilight Zone"-inspired ending nearly makes up for all that comes before. Read Full Review » -
67
Austin Chronicle
Unlike King, Darabont ends this story with a drop kick to the cerebellum, a change from the original that shocks the viewer and leave little doubt that Darabont thinks we're all headed to hell in a hand basket. Read Full Review » -
63
USA Today
More thought-provoking than frightening. Its stubbornly cynical attitude makes it worth watching, more than the monsters or the impenetrable mist (which looks spewed from a fog machine) engulfing a small town in Maine. Read Full Review » -
63
TV Guide
The movie has a monster problem -- the more you see of them, the less scary they are -- most of the characters are standard-issue types, and Harden seriously overdoes the pious psycho bit. Read Full Review » -
63
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60
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60
The New Yorker
The Mist is itself a supermarket of B-movie essentials, handsomely stocked with bad science, stupid behavior, chewable lines of dialogue, religious fruitcakes, and a fine display of monsters. Read Full Review » -
50
Variety
Much nastier and less genteel than his best-known Stephen King adaptations ("The Shawshank Redemption," "The Green Mile"), Frank Darabont's screw-loose doomsday thriller works better as a gross-out B-movie than as a psychological portrait of mankind under siege, marred by one-note characterizations and a tone that veers wildly between snarky and hysterical. Read Full Review » -
50
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50
Chicago Sun-Times
If you have seen ads or trailers suggesting that horrible things pounce on people, and they make you think you want to see this movie, you will be correct. It is a competently made Horrible Things Pouncing on People Movie. If you think Frank Darabont has equaled the "Shawshank" and "Green Mile" track record, you will be sadly mistaken. Read Full Review » -
50
The New York Times
Until the director Frank Darabont decides that he's saying something important instead of making a nifty horror movie, The Mist isn't half bad. Read Full Review » -
50
New York Daily News
The brutally ironic ending, I might add, won't make anybody very happy about having chosen The Mist for their evening's entertainment. Read Full Review » -
50
New York Post
A pretentious left-wing monster movie with about 15 minutes of alarming creatures and a whole lot of bickering, is a pre-9/11 story which Stephen King wrote eons ago. It operates in the post-9/11 era about as well as a Studebaker at the Daytona 500. Read Full Review » -
50
Baltimore Sun
The Mist contains nary a dollop of wit and irony. As adapted and directed by Frank Darabont, there's no ambiguity either. Read Full Review » -
50
Boston Globe
The Mist doesn't provoke further thought; it provokes active annoyance at being punished in the service of a pulp morality tale with pretensions. Read Full Review » -
50
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)
I wouldn't say this is laugh-out-loud risible, but there are definitely moments. Still, you might want to consider sitting through the uneven thing just to get to the ending, because that's quite something. You may love it, you may hate it, but forget it you won't. Read Full Review » -
40
New York Magazine
A derivative horror picture that somehow rises to the level of a primal scream. The premise is simple, by which I mean both easy to understand and feeble-minded. Read Full Review » -
30
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