Today, we watched the film “The Mist” I shall discuss a few ideas conveying around the theme “Religion”.
“Religion” plays a big part in “The Mist” as it is used as a metaphor for all things controlling and evil. This can be seen quite obviously by the way the Christian women (Mrs. Carmody) is acting towards the rest of the group. She first appears hostile and aggressive as she is the only one expressing a stereotypical Christian attitude towards the mist and the creatures. She believes they are the sign of the biblical end of the world. In doing this she brainwashes the other people in the supermarket back to the ages of human sacrifice all in the name of “God”. She keeps telling everyone of how they should repent for all their sins, she fills there thoughts and therefore influences them to follow her. She uses the religion to make her feel although she is God, everyone follows her commands like her mindless army. In “The Mist” the followers of religion are shown as sheep, just following the nearest person who believes they are “Gods Profit”. She doesn’t give the group any helpful ways of handling the situation, she just feeds off their collective fear. This shows the way “God” is perceived in this film, living off people’s fear and lies. This can be seen in real life, as nobody knows for certain if there is a God or not.
Another example of the evilness of religion, is when Mrs. Carmody attacks the last of the military, for she blames him for the creatures coming through. This shows a interesting theme of Religion Vs. Science. Religion is based on purely what people believe, there is no certainty about any religion, they believe that the world was created by God(s). The military are working for the scientists, who believe the world was created by a big bang. Ever since these two entities have been a key part in people’s lives, they have conflicted. This is shown by the film, however the film is not shown from a biased point of view. In the same aspect, they are both sources of evil, the scientists being the physical of evil, and religion being psychologically evil.
When Mrs.Carmody attacks with the rest of her “followers” she calls the military man Judas. In the bible Judas is the one that goes against Jesus. When the group picks him up, he is shown as the metaphor of Jesus, having the same body position as when Jesus was nailed to the cross, being taken to his ending by the mindless crowd. This is where we see the true meaning of religion, Mrs, Carmody is shown as evil personified, even though she is calling him Judas, he is seen as more Jesus, begging for forgiveness even though it wasn’t his fault about the monsters, as it was his job.
The next scene with strong religious influences is when the “group” leaves the supermarket, this scene is accompanied by heavenly music, as the car leaves the car park in slow motion. The high beams of light from the car shines across the expressionless faces of the religious followers as they stand in the window wtching the other group leave. This represents the heavenly light that people see when they die, the expressionless faces represents death. They are like mindless zombies, as Mrs. Carmody has brain washed them with her religious views. The fact that there are monsters outside means that they are trapped inside the supermarket. They cannot reach the light. This is reminiscent of how life is, to get to the “safety” of heaven, you must first concur your fears and fight the “monsters” (Metaphorical of coarse).
In conclusion, the theme religion in “The Mist” is represented as the source of evil and is used as a way to control people into doing evil things, via the way Mrs. Carmody acts throughout the entire film, and how people follow her even though the way they act is evil.
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