It's been much too long since Frank Darabont's made a movie. He's done a lot of uncredited work on other people's screenplays, but the last real Darabont project was 1999's The Green Mile.

At last, Frank's getting back to making his own movies. Variety says he's adapting yet another Stephen King novella into a film script, and then directing it. The novel in question is The Mist, which Frank will make into a horror film.

Doing a horror movie is something of a departure from his previous movies. Darabont says, "It's time to get down and dirty and make a nasty little character-driven gut-punch horror movie." Apparently, The Mist is a project he and King have been kicking around together for years, but it got shelved in favor of what he calls "classier" work like Shawshank.

"The Mist" was published in 1985 as part of a collection of King short stories. In it, a thick fog or mist engulfs a small town and kills anyone caught up in it. Survivors take refuge in a supermarket, where they end up under siege by murderous beasties trying to get in.

Frank Darabont's no stranger to horror. He cut his teeth writing movies like Nightmare on Elm Street 3, The Blob, and The Fly II. It was only in the 90s with movies like The Shawshank Redemption and The Green Mile that his name became synonymous with what some might consider more respectable fare.