The Mist and Gramma

Horrorphile

follow this blog

1043 followers

3405 daily readers

rank of 1

E-mail Subscription

Receive an e-mail notification of new posts on this site:

Stephen King's THE MIST and Gramma

November 23rd 2007 01:50

One of Stephen King’s best novellas is The Mist which featured in his uneven collection of short stories, Skeleton Crew. It’s up there with The Body (filmed as Stand By Me), Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption, and The Running Man (sensational read written as Richard Bachman, but dreadful movie).

I was anticipating a movie would be made of The Mist; pretty much 98% of what King writes gets optioned, and it has been made, with a release date for down under early next year. It’s screenwritten and directed by Frank Darabont who made the most popular King adaptation, The Shawshank Redemption (which features high in imdb’s top ten all-time movies).

The movie follows the plight of a township under siege from monstrous beasts that have emerged from the fog from hell, which has enveloped the town following a heavy storm. A group seeks shelter in a mini-mart while giant spiders and all manner of hideous leviathan-esque blood-thirsty beasts devour the unfortunate.

The cast and trailer looks strong and word on the cyber-streets (from screenings in the States) is that the movie is a winner, with a successful mix of well-crafted suspense and frightening special effects set-pieces. Nasty monsters in the twilight zone mist? Hot damn, count me in!

Here is the theatrical trailer:

Apparently Stephen King is open to aspiring film students sending him their treatments to adaptations of his many short stories. If he feels they’ll embark on the project with sincerity and determination and with an honest and imaginative interpretation of the source material he’ll allow them to option the story for the modest fee of one dollar. What a gentleman.

Barret Oliver as George

Many of them turn out to be utter dross, or they never see any light of day outside a screening in a university film lecture hall. One of them that works half-decently is an adaptation of Gramma, about an overly imaginative boy George (Barret Oliver) and his very scary grandmother, which was made for the TV show The Twilight Zone, with a teleplay by legendary sf-writer Harlan Ellison and directed by Bradford May. It first aired in 1986.

Admittedly the boy’s voice-over narration is damn annoying, but the atmosphere is genuinely creepy, and Frederick Long as the voice of Gramma is eeeeeexcellent. The very Lovecraftian tale still manages to spook, as it plays on those very primal fears we had when we were young, y’know, like our grandma being a demon-witch.

Here is the twenty minute short film in two parts:

Stephen King's THE MIST and Gramma

Comment by Damo

Comment by Bryn

Comment by Cibbuano

Comment by Bryn

Comment by Anonymous

Add A Comment