(AMC+/fubo/VOD) I read a fair amount of King as a kid and, while I found much of it thrilling, I recall very little of it disturbing me (although the TV film adaptation of IT definitely kept me awake at night) except for one short story from his SKELETON CREW collection: THE MIST. I fully realize it wasn’t so much the story itself, but how the story let my imagination run wild with the fear of what’s unseen.
While Frank Durabont’s adaptation of THE MIST differs in many ways from the source material, it still reckons with the idea of ‘what’s the worst out there that we can’t see?’, taking it to the extreme with what you may feel is a controversial end. In-between the opening and that ending, you have your traditional small-town interpersonal conflicts and blow-ups, mostly structured within the space of a decently sized grocery store with overly spacious front windows.
It includes murderer’s row of fantastic performers, including Laurie Holden and Jeffery DeMunn (both pre-THE WALKING DEAD), Andre Braugher, and frickin’ Toby Jones, stylish shots and cracking sound and monster design, it’s one of those adaptations where everything coalesces into something special.
(By the way, there was a barely-promoted TV adaptation of THE MIST that aired on the now-defunct basic cable channel Spike in 2017. Unless you’re hardcore about comparing adaptations — like I am — you may want to skip it.)