Stephen King’s 1980 novella The Mist, about a small town lucky enough to be engulfed in a mysterious fog filled with monsters, is getting the TV series treatment at Spike, and, as a trailer released Tuesday shows, series creator Christian Torpe has expanded the Mist-o-verse. While the novella (and Frank Darabont’s 2007 feature film) was set almost entirely in a single supermarket, the TV show, with hours to fill, will add everyone’s favorite thing about television: subplots! Now we’ll get to see how other, nonsupermarket-shopping inhabitants deal with the onslaught, whether they are trapped in a church, a mall, or even a car. What’s more, the mist itself now appears to have psychological effects on those caught in it, rather than simply being a convenient harbinger for a deadly attack by prehistoric monsters. (If you get a choice, insist on the monsters-only mist for your town: No sense dwelling on the past before a pterodactyl snaps your neck!)
Despite these changes, however, it seems like Torpe has stayed true to the positive and uplifting theme that has made the novella such a favorite all these years: Give people an excuse, no matter how slim, and they’ll bring back human sacrifice faster than you can say “Stephen King’s The Mist.” The cast list doesn’t include the characters from the story, so there’s no Mrs. Carmody, the religious nut who first suggests appeasing the monsters Old Testament–style in earlier versions of The Mist. Smart money’s on Frances Conroy’s character taking her place—she looks like she’s got some of that old-time religion in the trailer, plus she’s named “Natalie Raven.” The Mist will premiere on Spike on June 22, which should allow plenty of time for binge-watching before the actual mist arrives in late August. Start stockpiling now!
