The morning after a freak storm that has wreaked havoc with homes and yards in small-town Maine, USA, tensions are running high. David Drayton (Jane) rises above that tension and uses the crisis as an opportunity to bury the hatchet with his neighbour Brent (Braugher), a big city dweller whose small town hideaway has been hit hard by the storm. The pair head to the local supermarket to pick up supplies to help clean up the mess, accompanied by David's young son Billy (Nathan Gamble). As they prepare to leave the market, a thick mist descends upon the town coming form from a nearby military base. A panicked neighbour comes running out of the mist...

"Don't go out there! There's something in the mist!"

The shoppers return to the supermarket as the mist surrounds it. Screams can be heard in the distance, but the mist is so thick than that nobody can see more than a few feet. Over the next few days the shoppers' attempts to leave the supermarket are countered by all manner of dastardly insect-like creatures. Perhaps scarier than what is outside the supermarket is the growing paranoia and religious mania being led within the store by Mrs Carmody (Harden).

Screenwriter/Director Frank Darabont has previously adapted two other Stephen King stories into feature films, The Shawshank Redemption and The Green Mile, though this is the first archetypal Stephen King story he has tackled. Tongue-in-cheek, he has suggested that he made The Mist to undo all the good he achieved with those other two. In a lot of ways he is right. The Mist is a throwback to the sci-fi monster movies of the 1950s and it's scary as hell!