The Mist is a zombie movie without all the zombies. Of course, the best zombie movies (Romero’s, 28 Weeks Later, even Shaun of the Dead) aren’t really about the zombies at all. The zombies are just the pressure, a faceless reminder of the inevitability of an ugly, unsentimental demise. It’s really about the people, you see, and how slowly (or quickly) civility get thrown out the window when the survival instinct overpowers rational thought. So goes The Mist. When it focuses on the people – melodramatic though they may be – it’s at its best. It’s when the monsters come charging out of the mist that things get a little wonky.

Truth be told, I was actually sort of disappointed there even was anything in the mist. (I’ve read the original Stephen King novella and even played a bit of the text-based adventure game, but it’s been a long time.) People fending off horrible monsters isn’t anything new to me, and if you’re reading this now, it’s probably nothing new to you either. There’s only so much CGI can do before we get preoccupied with the idea of “ah, that’s CGI doing that,” and really, is there any surer way to break the spell than extended special effects sequences?

Yes, at the ripe old age of 26, I feel comfortable telling you I’m not interested in seeing inventive new ways for people to die.

But there’s something good going on here, schizophrenic as the movie may be. The material was adapted and directed by Frank Darabont, one of the usual suspects for a King adaptation. But the story is not so usual. Darabont made his career adapting The Shawshank Redemption, then later made another, smaller splash with The Green Mile. Both are fables about the purifying crucible of prison. The prison in The Mist is a grocery store in (where else?) rural Maine. Its occupants don’t fair nearly so well as the men in the previous pictures.

I haven’t talked about the plot, or why the monster-filled mist has shrouded an entire Maine town (and, perhaps, the world.) That’s because like the zombies, the plot doesn’t matter. It didn’t matter why the dead were rising up to eat the living in Romero’s Dead pictures, either. And really, that just makes sense; by the time humanity’s whittled down to small, isolated clutches of desperate people, what does it matter what caused the problem?

Again, it’s the people that matter. As the body count in the beleaguered grocery store rises, two leaders emerge: clear-headed husband and father David Drayton (Thomas Jane) and Mrs. Carmody (Marcia Gay Harden), a Bible-thumping madwoman who keeps referring to the Book of Revelation in plural form, as in Book of Revelations. This is annoying, as it was another Stephen King novella (Rage, under the Richard Bachman pseudonym) that first taught Young Ken about this all-too-common error. But never mind.

Fear and occasional horrific violence erode reason, and it’s not long before Drayton and a few sane folks find themselves outnumbered by Carmody and her followers. This is the point in the exercise where the standard critic (or viewer) makes some reference to the current national atmosphere, about genuine threats from outside and buckling within due to fear-driven mania, yadda yadda yadda. It’s a common fallacy in any kind of criticism, especially as it relates to horror movies. Remember when the American version of The Ring was said to be a metaphor for the anxiety over avian bird flu? Or that 28 Days Later was said to be a metaphor for SARS panic? Sounds almost farcical now, doesn’t it? The memory of both movies has long outlasted that of their alleged inspirations.

These interpretations misunderstand the fundamental appeal and utility of horror, one of the oldest and most enduring of storytelling traditions. These stories, however topical they may seem, are ultimately never simply about this morning’s headlines; at least, the good ones aren’t. Can you think of current situations this little melodrama may symbolize? Sure. Can you think of events ten years ago that would fit equally as well? Absolutely. How about a hundred years ago? Also yes.

And so on. Stories like this work – and this particular one does more often than not, shoddy CGI or not – because they identify constants of human behavior and blow them up to a size more easily recognizable. No, none of us are likely to ever fend off gigantic killer wasps or carnivorous tentacles. But I’d wager many of us have experienced disbelief from someone we respect, simply because they weren’t ready to accept an uncomfortable truth. Taken on that level, The Mist is a sturdy if uneven contribution to the genre. If all you want is a monster movie… you’ll get yours, too.