“Because I wanted to die. It’s OK. I don’t want to die anymore. I’m happy. I’ve seen God.”

By Melekwe Anthony

The Mist is definitely one of those television shows that makes you wonder, “What the heck is going on here?”It begins in a small town called Bridgeville in Maine. A soldier watches his dog get torn apart before his eyes, a teenage girl has just been raped, and the whole town soon finds out there is something coming for them in the mist.

The series of ten episodes is based on a 1980 novella with the same title, authored by Stephen King. Although some parts of the storyline were adjusted to fit screen viewing, the series still contains the same key elements which made it successful as a novella. Fear, mystery, and suspense have become regular themes when reading Stephen King, and The Mist doesn’t disappoint.

The main story begins just after the sheriff’s son is accused of sexually assaulting a teenage girl. We are led to believe this crime is the reason why a strange mist pours into their small town from the mountains, but it isn’t. Nobody knows where the gray clouds come from but people end up dead when caught up in it.

The Mist takes us through the crazy things that happen when different people are forced to live together in dangerous times. The plotting, conspiracy, and utter foolishness displayed by certain characters, highlight the fear of what could happen within than the mysterious mist that lurks outside.

Kevin Copeland (Morgan Spector) is separated from his family once the mist envelopes the town. He is forced to team up with escaped criminals in hopes of locating his wife and daughter, trapped at a superstore with his daughter’s alleged rapist. The unbelievable things that happen while hiding in that superstore are better watched first-hand.

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This isn’t the first adaptation of the 1980 novella, but unlike the 2007 film, the series affords us more time to understand the story. It doesn’t embody the familiar man vs nature concept like the novella, the screenwriter Christian Torpe decided to portray the thrilling parts of the story instead. Questions of faith are brought up in the series; God vs Nature – completely typical for anyone who knows Stephen King’s stand on the matter.

Though a total of 23 million dollars was reportedly spent in the making of the series, The Mist got relatively poor audience ratings online. Many people claimed the storyline was forced, the characters didn’t develop well enough, and it obviously wasn’t written by Stephen King.

Altogether The Mist provides a great source of entertainment. Every episode leaves viewers wanting for more. Episode one to ten is a continuous story with little or no flashbacks which allows viewers to focus on the story. With just two to three second flashbacks in only three of the episodes, the suspense doesn’t break. We covered our faces during certain moments: When the dog gets torn to pieces, when a woman comes running to the glass door without her jaw, and when occupants begin to kill themselves to save food.

It seems to fall in all categories. The Mist remains one of the most intense horror thrillers after Van Helsing (2016) and Hell Bound (2021). The end of episode nine where we find the real rapist, qualifies The Mist as one of the best crime mystery television series of 2017. Episode ten ended with a question mark. We are still left wondering what the mist really is, especially when we see soldiers dumping people into it.