Much like the thick veil of supernatural (?) fog blanketing the quaint town of Bridgeville, series showrunner Christian Torpe wants to keep viewers largely in the dark when it comes to The Mist and the horrors that lies within.
With little over a week to go until Spike’s premiere, Arrow in the Head caught up with Torpe to discuss his creative approach to Stephen King’s eerie novella, how it differs from Frank Darabont’s film adaptation, and why he believes that The Mist is just as much about the town’s reaction to chaos as it is about that abnormally thick, downright terrifying fog that begins to roll in off the mountains. As a matter of fact, Christian Torpe even went so far as to say that The Mist isn’t a “full-blown monster show,” which is almost to be expected.
For one, Spike’s small-screen reboot doesn’t boast the production budget of Darabont’s horror flick, which means that CGI will likely be used relatively sparsely – and really, that’s okay. The Mist TV series is set to unfold across a total of ten episodes – for its first season, at least – so news that Torpe and Co. plan to exercise some restraint when it comes to the otherworldly creatures is music to our ears.
I don’t want to reveal too much about what we see in there. What I can say is, it is more a show about how people react to what they see than what is actually there. It becomes boring if you know everything that’s in the show, so we were mindful of not going full-blown monster show like the movie did. I still hope we will deliver to the hardcore genre fans.
Casting-wise, Spike’s small-screen horror revival will feature Alyssa Sutherland as haunted mother Eve Copeland, who is ostensibly cast out of the town’s inner circle after her daughter posts rape allegations against one of Bridgeville’s star football players – the poster child of Maine, essentially. It’s an unspeakable crime that threatens to tear their family apart, and Eve’s plight will no doubt become one of the show’s primary story arcs in a few days’ time. Morgan Spector, Frances Conroy, Gus Birney, Dan Butler, Luke Cosgrove, Danica Curcic, Okezie Morro, Darren Pettie, Russell Posner and Isiah Whitlock Jr. all co-star.
The Mist will begin its ten-episode stint on Spike come June 22nd.
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.
