Frank Darabont has had quite a rollercoaster of a film career. He has experienced both extraordinarily positive feedback from audiences and critics, for his uplifting prison epic The Shawshank Redemption, as well as ruthless critical backlash, for his Capra-aping story of memory loss in The Majestic. With his first film since The Majestic, Darabont looks to rebound from that career low point. To do so, he is going back to the well that has thus far treated him kindly: Stephen King texts.
The Mist, adapted from a King novella of the same name, is the fourth time Darabont has directed an adaptation of King’s work. No stranger to the supernatural (Darabont wrote two episodes of “Tales From the Crypt” as well as the 1988 remake of The Blob), this will be Darabont’s first attempt at adapting one of King’s true horror stories.
The day after a vicious thunderstorm hits small Maine town, an unnatural mist envelops the town, bringing with it various deadly beasts. As a result, several strangers become trapped in a supermarket, where they try to survive the onslaught of these paranormal monsters.
Even though the film is more of a straight horror film meant to scare, that is not what was most interesting to Darabont. In April he told MTV News that the film is more than just a monster movie. “The story itself is what happens to the people inside the market, how they react, how the social dynamic unravels, how civilization falls on its ass because ultimately the monsters that are the scariest are your friends and neighbors,” he said. This may be the case, but with CafeFX on board to render the monsters, the company responsible for such special effects revelations as Pan’s Labyrinth and Peter Jackson’s King Kong, The Mist should provide plenty of scares as well.
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