With the teaching schedule I have, vacations are not viable. One semester blends into another like some demonic tapestry with blurred edges between the somewhat discrete components. Breaks just aren’t part of the picture. While my family is on a well-deserved vacation, I’ve been home doing class prep and lecturing. On those nights when I have no classes, I sometimes watch a movie to hear the sound of human voices. This week one of my picks was The Mist.

My fascination with horror films stretches back to my college days, concurrent with my first degree in religious studies. Never a slasher fan, I’ve preferred the more thoughtful movie that has a (hopefully) profound message. I’d never read Stephen King’s novella on which this movie was based, so I didn’t know what to expect. All I knew was “there’s something in the mist.” The build-up was great until the creatures were shown – after that it became a standard monster flick. A human menace arises in the form of Mrs. Carmody, a religious zealot who is convinced the mist is the apocalypse. As the survivors try to form some plan of action, Carmody’s preaching becomes more and more strident and self-convinced as the “wicked” die and the “righteous” are spared. Not having read the book, I’m not sure if her over-the-top rhetoric originated with King or with Frank Darabont, the screenwriter/director.

I have often posted on the relationship of monsters and religion, but The Mist is almost too easy to cite. Perhaps released too late to make it into Douglas Cowan’s Sacred Terror, the connection between religion and fear is patent and bald. Mrs. Carmody’s religion, apart from being very generally Christian, is hard to identify. She insists on human sacrifice while constantly referencing the Bible. Although there are examples of human sacrifice in the Bible, that particular cultic activity is never advocated for monster invasions or the apocalypse. Carmody is a parody of religious over-reaction to the unfamiliar and dangerous. In her insistence that others take her point of view, the caricatured Carmody becomes a danger that threatens the community. It is left indeterminate whether her followers survive or not.

The religious agitator is a trite and tired character, but one that has instant recognition value. In The Mist, however, I came for the mystery and stayed for the monsters. Mrs. Carmody could have said much more by saying much less.