Warning: spoilers ahead for the premiere of The Mist.
Spike has had a brand new show based on a classic Stephen King story in the works for a while now, and trailers indicated that viewers were in for something to seriously scare them this summer. The Mist finally premiered on Spike, and we got our first look at the citizens of the small town of Bridgeville as it became enveloped in a mysterious mist filled with all kinds of nasty creatures. Alyssa Sutherland stars as Eve Copeland, and she recently spoke with CinemaBlend about the new series. She told me this about a scene that was actually quite scary to film:
I didn't have a nightmare, but our director for the pilot Adam Bernstein was really smart. There's the quick scene where Eve and Kevin are in the kitchen and a rock comes through the window. Adam told us we were going to do a few takes of the scene without doing the rock coming through this window. He was like, 'Let's do a couple takes and then we'll do some with the rock. Let's get the scene down first.' That's what he told us. And then he sent the rock through the window anyway! Both me and Morgan [Spector] completely weren't expecting it because he told us not to. It was genius... We both jumped. You can see it. After the rock comes through, there's a quick cut of us and I absolutely 100% know that was the take that they used.
While The Mist did open on a teaser that featured the mysterious mist, an amnesiac soldier, and the absolutely travesty that was the death of a TV dog, the action in the beginning of the episode was mostly domestic as the Copeland family dealt with a very personal trauma. When teenage Alex reported to the police that the local football superstar had sexually assaulted her, the town turned on the Copeland family, and a brick was heaved through the Copelands' kitchen window. Apparently, Alyssa Sutherland and her co-star Morgan Spector were under the impression that they'd get to run through the scene a few times before the rocks started flying, but the director had another plan in mind.
As somebody who totally jumped in my seat when the rock came through the window, I can't blame Alyssa Sutherland and Morgan Spector for jumping during filming. In fact, I'd say it was a perfect first scare for viewers, so kudos to director Adam Bernstein for knowing how to pull such a genuine reaction out of the actors. Sutherland told me the story with a laugh, so she clearly recovered from the shock, and it set the stage for a series that looks to be as much about the horrors that humanity can inflict as about the horrors of a supernatural mist.
That said, the mist itself was pretty creepy in the premiere, which wasn't a huge surprise after how Alyssa Sutherland revealed the way it was created on set. Something tells me Stephen King will be glad that he gave showrunner Christian Torpe the go-ahead to put his own twist on the novella source material. Hopefully the rest of the season will be as suspenseful as the first episode.
You can catch new episodes of The Mist on Thursday nights at 10 p.m. ET on Spike. For what else you can watch in primetime, our summer TV premiere schedule can help you out.
