You wait months – no, years – for a Stephen King adaptation and suddenly, three come along almost at once. In two weeks’ time, Spike will kick things off with a small-screen rendition of The Mist, King’s horror novella that imagines a scenario in which the quaint town of Bridgeville, Maine is enveloped by a deeply mysterious fog. Is it a government experiment gone awry? A surprise chemical attack? Or something not of this world?
Those questions will permeate the very fabric of Spike’s TV series, which will tell its unsettling story over the course of ten hour-long episodes – for the first season, at least. It’s the first of three Stephen King properties earmarked for an adaptation, what with The Dark Tower (August 4th) and It (September 8th) looming large on the horizon, too.
What immediately piques our curiosity about The Mist, though, is the fact that showrunner Christian Torpe and his team will naturally have more time to delve deep into the town’s eccentric population than, say, the Frank Darabont-directed cult classic of 2007. And considering that King’s source material is littered with strange, deeply complex characters, that can only be good news. Because once that fluffy white mist begins to roll in off the mountains, it isn’t long before the rules of society are kicked to the curb.
Casting-wise, The Mist will feature Alyssa Sutherland as haunted mother Eve Copeland, who toplines a cast that includes Morgan Spector, Frances Conroy, Gus Birney, Dan Butler, Luke Cosgrove, Danica Curcic, Okezie Morro, Darren Pettie, Russell Posner and Isiah Whitlock Jr.
A small town family is torn apart by a brutal crime. As they deal with the fallout, an eerie mist rolls in, suddenly cutting them off from the rest of the world and, in some cases, each other. Family, friends and adversaries become strange bedfellows, battling the mysterious mist and its threats, fighting to maintain morality and sanity as the rules of society break down.
What happens when the pillars of society give way to anarchy and a primal fear that is as infectious as it is devastating? The Mist will explore that morally grey area throughout the course of its ten-episode stint on Spike come June 22nd. Will you be tuning in though? Let us know in the usual place.