In order to attempt any meaningful review of Frank Darabont's The Mist, one has to begin with the ending. Without risking a description that would destroy the movie for any of you thinking of attending, suffice it to say that it is the most psychologically disturbing denouement of any film I have seen. It is gut wrenching, overpowering and will directly determine whether you love or hate this tantalizing little misfit of a film.

Since The Mist is based on a Stephen King short story, it is first and foremost a horror film. Using his favorite motif of a small Maine town, local citizens find themselves trapped in a Wal-Mart type department store while a sinister fog settles over their community. As they look nervously about, a local habitant comes running in, bleeding from the face, screaming "Don't go out into the mist, there are monsters!"

What proceeds to unfold is a rather cleverly written horror story that is part King Kong, part King Lear. In many ways it plays out like a modern day Greek tragedy where the locals are battling not only fearsome monsters, but also the destructive force of fear itself.

Unexpectedly, Darabont's movie is also a searing social critique of post 9/11 America. Like the locals in The Mist, we are consistently told that there are monsters (a/k/a terrorists) lurking in the dark waiting to tear us to pieces if we dare venture to far from home. We are constantly harangued to be fearful, and skilled politicians of both parties have used that fear to alter our way of life in many fundamental ways.

Think about if for a second. Pat Robertson and Jerry Fallwell blamed the 9/11 attacks on our moral decay, specifically linking them to homosexuals and abortion. Marcia Gay Harden plays a brethren religious fanatic who in a similar fashion harangues her terror-stricken town's folk. Harden's diatribes are part annoying, part troubling, and disturbingly mesmerizing.

As fear gradually grips the group, the superb character actor, Toby Jones, stands as the voice of reason. He is a woefully under appreciated actor, as anyone could see following his performance as the debauched diplomat in The Painted Veil and his intense portrayal of Truman Capote in Infamous. Here, playing a run of the mill store clerk, he leads those who oppose Ms. Harden, specifically noting that you can get people to do almost anything if you can keep them in fear.

In a small way King and Darabont have replicated with The Mist what playwright Arthur Miller did when he wrote The Crucible in 1953. While on the surface level Miller's play told the story of the hysteria that resulted in the Salem Witch Trials in late 17th Century New England, it was in reality a critique of the political witch-hunts taking place under Joseph McCarthy in the 1950's. Similarly, King and Darabont have created a surprisingly witty as well as chilling monster tale that in reality exposes the disastrous consequences caused by the fear and paranoia that have gripped this nation since the fall of the Twin Towers.

But until the end, the film's political undertone does not detract in any way from the film's genuine suspense. Make no mistake, The Mist is not some sophomoric remake of John Carpenter's The Fog (2005), which in and of itself was a sophomoric remake of the original The Fog (1980).

But any good horror fan knows that you judge the quality of a monster movie based on the catharsis experienced at the end. King Kong dies; Frodo must leave Middle Earth; Javier Bardem limps down a suburban sidewalk in No Country for Old Men; Ripley kills the Alien; The Terminator must sink into a molten death, and on and on.

But The Mist has only trauma, not an emotional catharsis, waiting for you at the end. Right when you are ready to relax and start breathing more easily, it applies a devastating electric shock. As noted above, the ending will largely dictate your reaction to this film.

"Z", my 16-year-old Saudi exchange student, hated the ending so passionately that it ruined the entire movie for him. While I can fully understand that, I believe that Darabont meant to shock audiences with the inevitable implications of succumbing to fear. No matter how you slice it, this extraordinary climax will be the template by which endings in other films are compared for a long time to come. That says something in and of itself.

Finally, the theme of this movie reminded me of Franklin Delano Roosevelt's famous statement at his first inauguration in 1932, "The only thing we have to fear is fear itself." This country was founded by people who made a hazardous trip across the ocean to establish a home in the wilderness. There were no stores, doctor's offices, schools, or ready food source. They knew fear, and they spit in the face of it to establish this country. Wouldn't it behoove us to remember that legacy and spit in the face of fear today?