The Mist (also known as Stephen Kings The Mist), is a 2007 American horror film based on the 1980 novella The Mist by Stephen King. The film is written and directed by Frank Darabont, who had previously adapted Stephen King’s work and had been interested in adapting The Mist for the big screen since the 1980s. With an ensemble cast including Thomas Jane, Marcia Gay Harden, Toby Jones, and Andre Braugher, Darabont began filming The Mist in Shreveport, Louisiana in February 2007. The director revised the ending of the film to be darker than the novella’s ending, a change to which Stephen King was amicable. Unique creature designs were also sought to differ from creatures in past films.

Following a violent thunderstorm, a small town community comes under vicious attack from creatures prowling in a thick and unnatural mist. Local rumors point to an experiment called “The Arrowhead Project” conducted at a nearby top-secret military base, but questions as to the origins of the deadly vapor are secondary to the group’s overall chances for survival. Retreating to a local supermarket, the survivors must face-off against each other before taking a united stand against an enemy they cannot even see.

Commercial artist David Drayton (Thomas Jane) and his wife Stephanie (Kelly Collins Lintz) witness the advance of an unusual mist from across the lake bordering their property. More immediately concerned with cleaning up in the aftermath of the storm, David and neighbor Brent Norton (Andre Braugher) go with David’s five-year-old son Billy (Nathan Gamble) to the local grocery store, which like the rest of the community was left without power. While at the store, an increasing amount of police activity in the streets draws the attention of the patrons, culminating with Dan Miller (Jeffrey DeMunn) running to the store with a bloody nose warning of something dangerous in the oncoming mist. Seeing the mist roll over the parking lot and hearing the scream of a man caught outside, the store patrons heed Miller’s advice and seal themselves within the store, which is soon shaken by a vicious earthquake. With visibility reduced to near-zero outside and uncertainty surrounding the fate of the man heard screaming before, a siege mentality takes hold. A mother of two (Melissa Suzanne McBride) is unable to convince anyone to escort her home to her children (whom she left alone), and she departs into the mist outside by herself.

As confusion sets in, the deeply religious Mrs. Carmody (Marcia Gay Harden) suspects the onset of Armageddon as others search for a different answer. While trying to find a blanket for his son, David hears something banging on the door of the loading dock. Unable to convince local mechanics Myron and Jim (William Sadler) of what he witnessed, they and bag-boy Norm (Chris Owen) open the loading-bay door against David’s strong advice, in attempts to repair the ailing generator. A set of otherworldly tentacles lined with claws grip Norm, dragging him away before the loading-bay door is closed again. Now certain of the deadly properties of the mist and aware of the imminent danger it poses to everyone in the store, David and assistant manager Ollie Weeks (Toby Jones) try and fail to convince Norton and other skeptical patrons not to go outside. Tying a clothesline around the waist of a man who agrees to retrieve a shotgun from Cornell (Buck Taylor)’s car, the rest of the store’s patrons are convinced when Norton and his followers are killed before walking three hundred feet from the front door. Only the bottom half of the man is recovered.

The patrons prepare to defend themselves by making torches. New creatures appear from the mist at nightfall; enormous flying insects and pterodactyl-like animals which pluck them off of the store windows, eventually breaking one of them and allowing the creatures in. Two people die in the ensuing attack, leaving another badly burned. Carmody begins gaining followers in the extreme belief that the world is ending and a human sacrifice is needed to clear away the mist. After Amanda Dumfries (Laurie Holden), who has been looking after Billy, discovers a friend who committed suicide by overdose, Billy makes his father promise that he will not let the monsters catch him. Aware of the growing danger Carmody poses to the group, David turns to thoughts of escape. To test the idea of safely reaching his car, he and a group of volunteers try to retrieve medical supplies for the burn victim from the pharmacy next door, but are attacked by spider-like creatures which claim the lives of three of the volunteers. Seeing the failed expedition, Carmody’s following grows even stronger with a visibly shaken Jim becoming one of her most vocal followers.

Billy, who had begged his father in vain not to go out leaving him behind, makes him promise that from now on they will stay together. With the discovery that two soldiers from the Arrowhead Project committed suicide during the expedition’s absence, the remaining soldier (Samuel Witwer) reveals that the project (which was an experiment into the existence of other dimensions) was the origin of the mist. At the hands of Carmody’s followers, the soldier is stabbed several times and thrown outside, where he is quickly killed by an enormous, lobster-like creature. Preparing to quietly leave, David and his group are intercepted by Mrs. Carmody, who insists that Billy is to be sacrificed. Carmody is shot twice and killed by Ollie Weeks, and the group proceeds unhindered out the front door. Ollie reaches David’s car and opens both doors, but then is killed and taken away by the lobster monster. Myron and Cornell are killed by the spider creatures. Amanda, David, Billy, Dan, and Irene (Frances Sternhagen) make it to the car. Manager Bud Brown (Robert C. Treveiler) is unable to find the car and runs back into the store.

Driving through the mist, David returns home to find his wife has fallen victim to the spider-like creatures. Heartbroken, he drives the group south, witnessing the destruction left in the wake of the mist and encountering a six-legged beast many times the size of a blue whale. Eventually they run out of gas without finding any other survivors. While Billy is sleeping, the four adults, surrendering to their fate, silently agree that there is no point in going further. With four bullets left in the gun and five people in the car, David shoots Amanda, Dan, Irene, and his son, Billy, to save them from death at the hands of the creatures. Wailing, he attempts to shoot himself with the now-empty gun before exiting the vehicle to let the creatures in the mist take him. He hears sounds like a creature moving toward him, but after a few moments a military tank drives by, followed by a large company of National Guardsmen with flamethrowers clearing away the mist and burning the creatures within it. Several trucks filled with survivors are part of the convoy, among them the mother whom nobody from the store would escort. David falls to his knees screaming as a pair of soldiers look at him in confusion. He had been driving away from help the entire time