Before It Was A Frank Darabont Movie, Stephen King’s The Mist Was A 1984 Audio Drama
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer / Dimension Films By Witney Seibold/Nov. 21, 2022 5:00 pm EST
Stephen King’s novella “The Mist” was originally published in 1980 as part of a horror compilation called “Dark Forces.” The impressive compilation included stories by Ray Bradbury, Edward Gorey, Joyce Carol Oates, and Robert Bloch, along with several others. “Dark Forces” was notable in the horror community, and it was widely read by other horror authors. In the 1985 interview book “Faces of Fear,” Clive Barker noted “Dark Forces” as the push he needed to start writing his own “Books of Blood.”
“The Mist” was easily the standout of the compilation, and would eventually be adapted to film in 2007 by Frank Darabont. The film, like the novella, tells the story of a mysterious fog that rolls in across a small, rural community, cutting off all visibility. Hiding in the mist are unseen creatures. Enormous bugs and land octopodes appear from nowhere and attack the locals. The bulk of Darabont’s film takes place in a locked grocery store with the customers hiding out from the beasties outside. Before long, factions form in the grocery store, and the humans turn on each other. Eventually, the monsters outside become preferable to the religious zealots inside. The film ends on a deliciously bleak note.
Why Darabont elected to adapt “The Mist” to the big screen is a bit of a baffling choice, as a complete lack of visibility is the story’s central theme. While Darabont did manage to throw in some creepy visuals of tentacles emerging from a while, opaque sheet of fog, the fact that no one can see into it — that no one can see anything — is the primary source of the tale’s terror. “The Mist” makes so much more sense on the page. Or, as struck upon by the ZBS Foundation in 1984, when adapted for radio.
Before It Was A Frank Darabont Movie, Stephen King’s The Mist Was A 1984 Audio Drama
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer / Dimension Films
By Witney Seibold/Nov. 21, 2022 5:00 pm EST
Stephen King’s novella “The Mist” was originally published in 1980 as part of a horror compilation called “Dark Forces.” The impressive compilation included stories by Ray Bradbury, Edward Gorey, Joyce Carol Oates, and Robert Bloch, along with several others. “Dark Forces” was notable in the horror community, and it was widely read by other horror authors. In the 1985 interview book “Faces of Fear,” Clive Barker noted “Dark Forces” as the push he needed to start writing his own “Books of Blood.”
“The Mist” was easily the standout of the compilation, and would eventually be adapted to film in 2007 by Frank Darabont. The film, like the novella, tells the story of a mysterious fog that rolls in across a small, rural community, cutting off all visibility. Hiding in the mist are unseen creatures. Enormous bugs and land octopodes appear from nowhere and attack the locals. The bulk of Darabont’s film takes place in a locked grocery store with the customers hiding out from the beasties outside. Before long, factions form in the grocery store, and the humans turn on each other. Eventually, the monsters outside become preferable to the religious zealots inside. The film ends on a deliciously bleak note.
Why Darabont elected to adapt “The Mist” to the big screen is a bit of a baffling choice, as a complete lack of visibility is the story’s central theme. While Darabont did manage to throw in some creepy visuals of tentacles emerging from a while, opaque sheet of fog, the fact that no one can see into it — that no one can see anything — is the primary source of the tale’s terror. “The Mist” makes so much more sense on the page. Or, as struck upon by the ZBS Foundation in 1984, when adapted for radio.
“The Mist” was easily the standout of the compilation, and would eventually be adapted to film in 2007 by Frank Darabont. The film, like the novella, tells the story of a mysterious fog that rolls in across a small, rural community, cutting off all visibility. Hiding in the mist are unseen creatures. Enormous bugs and land octopodes appear from nowhere and attack the locals. The bulk of Darabont’s film takes place in a locked grocery store with the customers hiding out from the beasties outside. Before long, factions form in the grocery store, and the humans turn on each other. Eventually, the monsters outside become preferable to the religious zealots inside. The film ends on a deliciously bleak note.
Why Darabont elected to adapt “The Mist” to the big screen is a bit of a baffling choice, as a complete lack of visibility is the story’s central theme. While Darabont did manage to throw in some creepy visuals of tentacles emerging from a while, opaque sheet of fog, the fact that no one can see into it — that no one can see anything — is the primary source of the tale’s terror. “The Mist” makes so much more sense on the page.
Or, as struck upon by the ZBS Foundation in 1984, when adapted for radio.
The ZBS Foundation
The ZBS Foundation was briefly big business in the public radio world, and one could hear their programs on NPR throughout the 1980s. The shows featuring an intrepid-yet-naïve spiritual traveler Jack Flanders (Robert Lorick were at the forefront of the studio’s catalog. I recommend “Moon Over Morocco.” as were the sci-fi epics starring Ruby, the Galactic Gumshoe (Laura Esterman), who solved unusual consciousness-warping mysteries on the distant planet of Summa Nulla, long after the Earth had been bought by Disney. I recommend “Ruby 3” and “Ruby Four.”
When listened to with headphones, it sounded like you were in the room. Hence the term “3-D sound.”
The Mist, in 3-D sound
In audio form, “The Mist” is fifty times more terrifying. As mentioned, not being able to see into the mist — gazing into an unknowable white cloud filled with unspeakable Lovecraftian horrors — is the crux of King’s story. With the visual element removed, the fear remains. And, thanks to the deep sound of the binaural recording format, you can hear people, panicked, running around you. While Darabont did a wonderful job of making the mist itself seem scary, when you can’t see it, the story is more effective. Additionally, director Bill Raymond (a ZBS regular) directed the show to have a lot more overlapping dialogue, with some portions of the scene playing close to a listener’s ears, and others taking place over in the corner. To employ an overused critical buzzword, it is an immersive experience.
The original show was broadcast in three chapters, although the readily-available downloadable version has been mixed into a single show.
Darabont’s film is good, but the ZBS version is near perfect.
