Atmospheric horror movie The Mist is director Frank Darabont’s third adaptation of a Stephen King story after The Shawshank Redemption and The Green Mile. “It’s a nasty little horror film,” he tells David Grove.

You’ve known Stephen King a long time. When did the two of you first cross paths?

There was a time when Stephen King allowed filmmakers to make films of his short stories for a dollar. These became known as the Dollar Babies, and I guess I was one of the first of those. In 1980, I wrote to Stephen and asked him if I could make a short film of The Woman in the Room. He said yes, much to my surprise, and I spent the next three years raising money, using all of my money, starving basically to get this movie completed. I was working odd jobs during this time, lots of crummy jobs, and using all of my money, all of my energy, to make it. It became my obsession.

I finished the film and Stephen actually liked it very much. He said he thought it was the best of the Dollar films. I look back at the film now and I see the work of a very inexperienced filmmaker, but I learned a lot from the whole process. That was the beginning of my friendship with Stephen. A few years later, in 1986, I approached Stephen about getting the film rights to The Shawshank Redemption and he said yes. So the short film I made really served its purpose because I wouldn’t have gotten to direct The Shawshank Redemption or The Green Mile - or The Mist - without it.

What was the toughest part of filming The Mist?

The filming was rapid-fire, very hectic, like the story itself. We shot the movie in about 30 days, working non-stop, and I only had a modest budget on the film, much less than my previous films, so it forced me to work very quickly and not think about things too much. It was a wonderful and horrible experience, but that’s the way I wanted it. I don’t want this to be a smooth-looking film. I want it to be a bit ragged, a bit like a jazz riff. I’ve never directed a movie like this before.

Before I started work on this film, I directed an episode of The Shield to prepare myself for The Mist. That was a great experience in terms of working on a quick schedule and having lots of fast set-ups. Most of the crew I worked with on The Shield I hired for The Mist because I knew I would use the same filming approach.

What did you like about Stephen King’s original story?

I love all of Stephen’s stories, but The Mist has always been one of my favourites. The Mist is classic Stephen King in that it’s about a group of varied people who are trapped in a very difficult situation, and from there Stephen describes all of them - you really get to know these people and like some and hate others.

The Mist seems like your typical monster movie, but there’s a lot going on under the surface. The story is about a group of people who are trapped in this supermarket during a storm and then the mist comes and inside the mist are these horrible creatures that will eat you. That’s the monster movie, but then there’s this whole other dynamic going on inside the supermarket with the different characters, and we discover that some of them are just as dangerous as the monsters they’re trying to hide from. This is the most important part of the story. How do the people react to this situation? Are the real monsters in life your friends and neighbours? Will these characters in this situation rise to the challenge or kill each other?

How did you conceptualise the monsters from the story?

The CGI in the film was done by the guys at CafeFX who did the CGI for Pan’s Labyrinth, which I loved. It’s hard to create a good monster nowadays because every monster seems to look like a monster in another film. My good friend Greg Nicotero from KNBFX did the makeup effects and I think fans of the story will be very happy with the monsters in the film, and how faithful they are to the story. The tentacles look really great. They have black spikes and they open up and you see the teeth. Of course, the mist itself is very scary...We tried to follow the descriptions of the mist monsters in the story as closely as possible.

How did you recreate The Food House?

We shot the film in Shreveport, Louisiana, and we built our own supermarket on the set. The supermarket is such a big part of the story and I wanted it to be really faithful. It looks and smells like a real supermarket. You can smell the bread, and there’s real food on the shelves, and there’s a book section that’s full of Stephen King books. Most of the action in the film takes place in the store room and the loading room, but we used every inch of the place.

Filming a movie in one location was an exciting challenge for me. When you have a bunch of people trapped in one place, things get tense, like a pressure-cooker, which is exactly the kind of film I wanted to make.

Your Indiana Jones 4 script was reportedly rejected by George Lucas. How much did that experience affect you?

It hurt me a great deal because I spent a year of my life writing that script and then I had to go through the process of having Steven Spielberg telling me he thought it was the best script he’d ever read, and then having George Lucas kill the whole thing because he didn’t like the script.

It was painful because I love the Indiana Jones films. I’m very proud of the script I wrote, and I was influenced to be a genre filmmaker because of the films that George and Steven made - the Star Wars trilogy, Close Encounters of the Third Kind. THX-1138 was another film that had a big influence on me as a kid. The good part of the whole experience was that it made me focus on my directing career much more. I’m much more focused on being a director first and a writer-for-hire second. I’m reluctant to be a writer-for-hire anymore.

Are you satisfied with how The Mist has turned out?

Yes, I think we made the best film we could, given the tight budget and the tight schedule. It a nasty little horror film, like 28 Days Later was, and I think that’s exactly what fans of the story are looking for.

You know, I don’t expect to be nominated for any Oscars for this, because it’s not that kind of film - although I certainly think the effects work is deserving of awards, especially with how good the mist monsters look. This is a fun, scary monster movie. It’s a pressure-cooker.

Why do you think you’ve been so successful at adapting Stephen King’s work?

I think the main thing is that I don’t mess with the story very much. I take the approach that if it’s not broken you shouldn’t fix it, and that’s definitely true with Stephen’s books and stories. I’m also very passionate about the stories. I’m a big fan of Stephen’s work and I love his writing. That’s why I want to make these films.

The Mist opens in UK cinemas on 4 July 2008.