It’s a hot, lazy day, perfect for a cookout, until you see those strange dark clouds. Suddenly a violent storm sweeps across the lake and ends as abruptly and unexpectedly as it had begun. Then comes the mist… creeping slowly, inexorably into town, where it settles and waits, trapping you in the supermarket with dozens of others, cut off from your families and the world.
The mist is alive, seething with unearthly sounds and movements. What unleashed this terror? Was it the Arrowhead Project—the top secret government operation that everyone has noticed but no one quite understands? And what happens when the provisions have run out and you’re forced to make your escape, edging blindly through the dim light?
Why we’re looking forward to this: Both Stephen King’s original novella and Frank Darabont’s 2007 masterful adaptation of The Mist are fine examples of what can be done with a simple premise and a group of people in a confined space, so we’re more than a little curious and excited to see what Spike TV is going to do with its newly greenlit ten part series based on the same premise.
On the one hand, the notion of having numerous characters trapped together in the grocery store would seem like the perfect fit for episodic television, with each episode focussing on the relationships, and possibly back story, of the characters. The flip side of this, though, is the danger in stretching what is a great plot for a two or even three hour movie so thin that it becomes flaccid and ineffective.
With TV series like Bates Motel and Hannibal we’ve seen just how well taking what would on the surface appear to be a limited premise can be handled, producing some of the finest small screen horror in years, but on the other hand there have been turkeys like the Scream TV show to argue the case for leaving well enough alone.
Only time will tell, but for now we’re willing to give The Mist the benefit of the doubt and look forward to what delights might be hiding within it.
The Mist is in production this summer and should be drifting onto our screens in 2017.
RICHARD COSGROVE
