ALPHA FOG
5 things you need to know about... Stephen King’s novella finds a new incarnation on TV
Everything you need to know about The Mist before it blows onto your TV.
THERE’S A STORM COMING
1 “It’s the twisted cousin of the Stephen King novella and 2007 movie,” says Christian Torpe, executive producer of Spike’s The Mist. The small-screen adaptation finds a quaint town under siege from a sinister fog harbouring predatory creatures. Torpe notes the core of the story remains the same in every incarnation, but considering the novella clocks in at 200 pages and unfolds in a supermarket, it needed to be fleshed out for an ongoing TV series. “We expanded with several little groups all over town,” Torpe tells Red Alert. “Some people are trapped at the mall. Some people are travelling through the mist, trying to get from one location to another. We have others at a church. At one point, the stories dovetail.”
THERE ARE NEW LEADS
2 The novella’s leading man, David Drayton – played by Thomas Jane in the film – is nowhere to be found. Instead, an entirely new cast of characters takes centre stage in the TV show. “We follow Kevin Copeland (Morgan Spector), who is the modern-day liberal man, believing in all the right values,” explains Torpe. “We follow his wife, Eve (Alyssa Sutherland), who is a local girl from this small town. She was a former wild child and very sexually liberated when she was younger. The town still holds it against her. They have a daughter, Alex (Gus Birney), who is sexually assaulted in the pilot.” Torpe stops talking there, leaving viewers to discover for themselves how the mist affects the family...
NOT EVERYONE ADAPTS TO THE WEATHER
3 As the tension mounts, it’s inevitable that some survivors begin to crack. The pressure-cooker situation tests the community’s morality – and sanity. In other words, expect local residents to do some very, very bad things in order to survive. “I would much rather let the stories develop from how people react to what they see and what they experience,” Torpe reports. “That’s when it really becomes interesting as a writer and a storyteller, to confront characters with what could only be their worst fears and see how they react to that. That’s where the paranoia comes from. Then, they are confronted with unspeakable evil.”
IT’S NOT FOR THE SQUEAMISH
4 Fair-weather viewers should look away now – indeed, the teaser trailer alone promises plenty of disturbing and grotesque deaths. “We certainly have some bloody, gruesome moments in there,” says Torpe. “It’s not the heart of the show. It’s still about the characters. But, in order to do a story about what people do when they are blinded by fear, we need to push their buttons in order to generate the stories we wanted to tell. There are definitely moments we are going all in.”
IT’S NO ACT OF GOD
5 Conspiracy theorists’ speculations surrounding the nature of the mist could be bang on. The quick presence of the military – and the mention of an ominous name – certainly suggests this disaster wasn’t a freak occurrence after all. “The mist’s origin is something we will cover,” Torpe concludes. “Fans of the source material will recognise the name ‘Arrowhead’ already in the pilot. That’s something we will expand on and uncover. The search for an answer does become an instrumental part of the story.”
The Mist airs on Spike TV in the US on 22 June.