Among the movies shown during Syfy’s 31 Days of Halloween was one of my favorite Stephen King creations ever: The Mist. I recorded it because I wasn’t able to watch during one of it’s showings.
A lot of people, my husband included, didn’t like The Mist. That’s why it took me a while to find time to watch it. I had to do it when I had the TV all to myself.
Anyway, I loved The Mist when I read it. Like so many other people, I went through a Stephen King phase big time at one point. As much as I pretty much loved all of his books, The Mist gripped me like none of his other works. I could not put it down. I read it all the way through, biting my nails the whole time.
To this day, it’s the only work of fiction I’ve ever done that with. It was the one that introduced me to a medium, the novella, I had not been familiar with before that. If I remember right, the collection of short stories The Mist was included in contained a phenomenal amount of good stories, but none terrified, mesmerized or captured my imagination like The Mist.
I never got to watch it during the Halloween season. I finally had a chance to watch it the other night. When I did, I was blown away to recognize a few of the actors. Ones I’ve come to know via a different show I now love, The Walking Dead.
It’d been a while since I’d seen The Mist. To be honest, the only actor I distinctly remembered was Marcia Gay Harden, because she played the vile zealous Bible beater so perfectly.
But Andrea, Dale, and Carol, as they’re known on The Walking Dead, were also in it.
Actress Laurie Holden: “Andrea” on The Walking Dead; “Amanda Dunfrey” in The Mist Actor Jeffrey DeMunn: “Dale” on The Walking Dead; “Dan Miller” in The Mist Actress Melissa McBride: “Carol” on The Walking Dead; “Woman with kids at home” in The MistI figured it’d be a heck of a coincidence they were all in The Mist and all happened to end up on The Walking Dead. There must be a connection.
Sure enough. That’d be Frank Darabont. He’s the creator of The Walking Dead, and he directed and wrote the screenplay for The Mist.
In fact, he also did the screenplay for some other Stephen King adaptations, like The Shawshank Redemption and The Green Mile. Talented man.
I suppose on some level I knew this. I recognized Mr. Darabont’s name, but I didn’t know why. Now it’s all been put together.
Courtney Mroch is a globe-trotting restless spirit who’s both possessed by wanderlust and the spirit of adventure, and obsessed with true crime, horror, the paranormal, and weird days. Perhaps it has something to do with her genes? She is related to occult royalty, after all. Marie Laveau, the famous Voodoo practitioner of New Orleans, is one of her ancestors. (Yes, really! As explained here.) That could also explain her infatuation with skeletons.
Speaking of mystical, to learn how Courtney channeled her battle with cancer to conjure up this site, check out HJ’s Origin Story.
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I was channel surfing and stumbled on to “The Mist” about halfway through. I immediately recognized Andrea and Dale. I googled some reviews, and in one of them, someone had commented that there were three “Walking Dead” actors in “The Mist” (though they didn’t mention who). Because I missed the first half, I hadn’t seen Carol’s scenes, so I didn’t know she was the third. I decided to see if I could figure out who the third was without looking it up, and immediately noticed that one of the three Army guys in the store played Morales in several season one episodes of “The Walking Dead” (his character in “The Mist” was also named Morales). His name is Juan Gabriel Pareja.
In reading more, the was a fifth: The more prominent of the three Army guys in “The Mist”, Private Jessup, had a small role in season one of “The Walking Dead”: he was the zombie in the tank that Rick hid in. His name is Sam Witwer.
OMG! LOL.. I just finished watching the Mist. I was so excited to see those fresh young TWD faces. I had absolutely no clue of the last two actors being in the mist you just made my day. Great post 🙂