Stephen King’s TV movie The Mist replaces monsters with bugs and religious fanatics

Back in 2007, Stephen King’s 1980 novel the fog It’s been adapted as a movie starring Thomas Jane and several giant spiders, as well as all kinds of giant, creepy crawly creatures that hunt humans and bang their heads. ten years later, the fog It became the Spike TV series. The adaptation is still about groupthink, and it’s still a horror show. But that’s all that remains the same.

spoilers for the fog And Moby Dick Before.

Everything else has changed. Mrs. Carmody (Mary Bacon), the novel’s and film’s central human villain, is killed off early in the series, like some sad thing the showrunners couldn’t be bothered with. Even more surprising to fans of the movie, five episodes into a 10-episode season, there have still not been any clear sightings of the monsters. Rather, what is hiding inside the fog It is pitch darkness, insects attacking at times, visions and hallucinations, and God knows what’s next.

What is becoming increasingly clear is that the show is about the brutalities humans can inflict on one another. It’s conspicuous for several reasons: In show lore, a fog swept through the city once before, in 1860, in what was called the “Black Spring.” Over a dozen townspeople are inexplicably murdered, and local legend claims that the Black Spring came about as a result of killing a woman.

Nowadays, the fog is probably caused by the violent crime this show is about, the alleged rape of Alex (Joss Birney), a perpetually looking sad high school student who becomes trapped in the local mall when the fog hits. City. It could also be a result of Project Arrowhead’s military experimentation, as it was in the novel and movie. Through scenes in church with Mrs. Raven (Frances Conroy), the show briefly plays with different belief systems and possible theories behind the fog. Could it be the eastern belief in karma and everyone gets what happens to them? Or is it the Day of Resurrection, as the priest insists? (Hint: Probably not.)

Numerous bloody scenes support the theory that the fog is a kind of karmic revenge. In a chilling scene in the third episode, he tells Michael (Stephen Yaffe), another man trapped alongside Lady Raven in the church, that her karmic revenge couldn’t be real, because if it were, he would have been the first target, as someone who has served jail time for committing it Atrocious crimes. As if the answer is, after a few scenes, a giant butterfly flies into his ear, which transforms horribly and kills him. The fifth episode is more direct: a former high school bully is attacked by some spectral teens who have been summoned by the Mist from his past. Just before they stab him, they taunt him with personal knowledge from his high school days. They are not real, as they know the events that happened before their own time era, but they are still able to avenge his cruelty.

Theories about the cause of the fog are still not fully confirmed, but its powers clearly reinforce Ms. Raven’s theory that nature must have had a hand in it, both in 1860 and now in 2017. The tangible and violent ways that the fog used the city have been read as a reminder of the power of nature, and is a clue as to where the show will be headed during the second half of the season.

And one strong indicator is the way haze is destroying technology, the most important barrier between humanity and nature. Technology is no more helpful to the protagonists now than it was at the beginning of the movie ten years ago. Fog interferes with electrical signals and computer chips. The mall drone stops mid-flight in a fog-filled atrium. All the cars in the small town have gradually stopped working, except for a survival car, which lacks a circuit board. Nobody has any phone signal, and the private emergency radio doesn’t work either. The Mists level the playing field by reducing humans to a “normal” state, with limited electricity, bugs everywhere, and only primitive tools at their disposal.

And the writers play with the subject matter in more literary ways. Episode 4 is titled “Pequod”, after the whaling ship in Herman Melville’s classic novel Moby Dick. There is a possible hint about the future of the series – as the great white whale Ahab hunts Palmyra pecode And leaving only one man to tell the tale, it’s suggested that the town will eventually end up somewhat dependent on the survivors. In Melville’s book, nature is unfathomable and unstoppable, yet frighteningly intelligent. Pisces is the embodiment of everything uncontrollable in nature, and without necessarily appearing sensitive, it still takes revenge on the ship’s crew. pecode, who proceeded to challenge and contain her. (Also, harpoon guns play an important role in both the book and mistreatment episode.)

The mystery within the fog is the only compelling reason to keep watching the show through slow motion from one plot point after another. Deviating so wildly from the source material, this show finds some excitement playing with Stephen King’s sleepy, gothic, silent world, while still veering into uncharted territory. But it’s all about this mystery, not about the characters caught within it. There is a bit of character development, but it’s not particularly comprehensive, and since the characters are there to be punished, they are rarely portrayed sympathetically. The show is entertaining, but it focuses entirely on making noise for what’s inside the fog. And if there is an abstract concept of how the world punishes inhumanity, how satisfying can a great revelation be?

Once the corpses are buried, the last of the electricity fades, the insects run out of blood, the fog He risks not having much to explore. The source material relied on its monsters for a chaotic creative thrill, but by taking a huge step back, the show risks leaving its characters to battle their pasts in a shallow, shallow way. Perhaps it is a good thing that the fog is so thick, because looking too hard might prove that there is nothing interesting out there after all.

the fog It airs Thursday nights at 10 PM ET on Spike TV.