I saw the world premiere of The Mist last night, with Frank Darabont in attendance.

I really like the original novella and the audio drama, and I was a little dubious about how they would stretch the content to fill an entire film. Well, they did it with needless exposition and wooden dialogue.

This is B movie quality, direct to DVD fare. Darabont said he had a $17 million budget, so he embraced the B movie aesthetic. While the creature designs were interesting, the actual CGI execution was poor. I never felt that afraid of the creatures.

There are a few neato moments. There is a scene near the end which is pretty much exactly what I pictured in my head when reading the story. But otherwise, I was pretty bored and annoyed with the dialogue and acting.

Darabont asked us not to spoil the ending, and of course I won’t. But I will go so far to say that it is controversial.