The Mist

Not content with bringing us The Shawshank Redemption and The Green Mile, that greatest of all Stephen King interpreters, Frank Darabont, completes an astonishing hat-trick of King adaptations with The Mist. With a straightforward enough setup, residents of a sleepy Maine town are terrorised by the contents of a mysterious mist that engulfs them without warning, leaving many trapped inside a supermarket where, ostensibly led by Jane's heroic everyman, they must fight for survival. Favouring character and atmosphere over cheap jumps, Darabont ratchets up the tension before cutting loose with razor-sharp set pieces, and even manages to make many-tentacled computer generated beasties scary. Crucially, there's as just as much to fear inside the store, as Harden's end-of-days spouting nutjob rallies the terrified patrons into a frenzy. From its atmospheric opening to an ending that will haunt you for weeks The Mist is, quite simply, the best American horror of the last 25 years. [Paul Greenwood]