Stephen King can describe whatever kind of scary creature he wants. On film, directors have to visualize these creations with all of cinema history in comparison. Creating the creatures that hide in The Mist, director Frank Darabont wanted to avoid those monsters who came before.
Stephen King's The Mist Monsters
"That was a months long process that I got into with my good friend Greg Nicotero who is kind of a legendary makeup effects artist with KNB," said Darabont. "It's his company. He's the first guy I called and we got into it together, kind of spearheaded that effort and brought some really wonderful artists onboard. Because we have a common language, Greg and I grew up with the same influences, we're very conversant with the genre. We know a lot of what's been done before and we were very consciously trying to not design creatures that owed something to somebody else's movie or somebody else's design. It's not easy to do of course because so much has been done but I think we struck a really terrific balance of representing what Stephen King wrote but not making it feel like somebody else's movie, somebody else's creature design."
The fog itself was rarely CGI. "Only in a couple of shots was the mist a computer graphic effect. Mostly it's all practical."
Common wisdom in horror movies is don't show the monsters. You get many a good peek at the creatures in The Mist, but Darabont was careful. "Well, you got to play a little bit of hide and seek. At a certain point, Stephen King himself has said, 'You've got to put on the scary mask and go booga booga.' But I think the Spielberg approach, which is show when you absolutely have to and be somewhat coy the rest of the time, is really the way to go."
Stephen King's The Mist opens to theaters on November 21st.
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