Creatures of the Mist

The creatures of the mist inhabit an alternate reality that accidentally intersected with our own in the form of a thick, unusual mist when an experiment called the Arrowhead Project, intended to peer into other dimensions, went terribly wrong. The phenomenon first manifested in Bridgton, Maine, and spread across an unknown amount of the U.S. or even the planet. Due to the thickness of the mist making sight almost useless to them, all the creatures in the mist hunt on the basis of scent. While in the novella universe, it is unknown whether the mist was contained to an amount of New England or spread across the world and thus the creatures overthrew humanity, in the film universe, the creatures were exterminated by the military two or more days after the Arrowhead Project went wrong, and were presumably wiped out.

ArachniLobster
This 50 foot tall, lobster-like creature bisects its victims in its huge, mantis-like claws. It is known for killing Ollie during the escape from the market.

Behemoth
A huge creature with six legs. In the novella universe, other than the legs, with hundreds of Scorpion-Flies clinging to them, this creature is unseen. Although the creature's exact size is never specified, David gets the impression that its size would make a blue whale resemble a trout if both were posed together and its weight is sufficient to leave six-foot deep footprints the size of large SUVs in solid concrete. The size of the Behemoth is estimated at 240 feet tall.

Gray Widowers
Deadly spider-like predators, each about the size of a dog. These creatures have the ability to produce corrosive web strands which can burn through materials like cloth and flesh and fire them at prey as projectiles. In both the novella and the film universe, Gray Widowers normally simply kill their prey with their acidic web strands, but in the film universe, they also have the ability to capture and lay hundreds of eggs in a living human host. The eggs take about a day to hatch.

Pterobuzzard
Nocturnal, pterodactyl-like creatures which eat Scorpion-Flies, although Pterobuzzards usually only eat Scorpion-Flies, they will also attack humans who get too close. One of these creatures killed a man named Tom Smalley by devouring the flesh on his neck.

Scorpion-Flies
Small, plump, flying creatures two feet long which swarm over the store windows at night. In the novella universe, these creatures have pink, burnt-flesh colored skin, and their eyes are on stalks protruding from their heads. Attracted to light and the Pterobuzzards' main food source, these large flying wasp monsters have a lethal neurotoxin that causes massive swelling and suffocation within a few minutes.

Tentacles
Squid-like tentacles that kill Norm in the storage room. The suction cups on the tentacles contain teeth which allow the suction cups to serve as mouths, consuming prey as the tentacles envelop it. It is unknown what type of creature the tentacles are attached to. When a severed tentacle is either poked or separated from the mist for too long, it decomposes into a foul-smelling liquid in a matter of seconds.

Killer Kite
A dinosaur sized, kite-like creature glimpsed flying through the mist. It only appeared in the novella universe.

Green Fly
A large, green creature which resembles a grossly misshapen dragonfly with clear wings which lands on the hood of the Scout. It only appeared in the novella universe.

Other creatures
Large, spider-like creatures, each about twice the size of a full-grown man. They appear to be much larger versions of the Gray Widowers, and only their burning corpses are seen, in the film universe.

In the film universe, instead of having hundreds of Scorpion-Flies clinging to its legs, the Behemoth has dozens of small, flying creatures, about the same size as Scorpion-Flies, flying around its thorax. From what can be seen, these creature have wings which loosely resemble the fins of a ray.

Theories

 * In the film universe, the creature which attacked Norton's group was most likely an ArachniLobster, as the creature which attacked Norton's group was evidenced to be very large, and the biker's body was cut in half.
 * In the film universe, the ArachniLobster which killed Jessup and the one which killed Ollie were likely the same one, as Jessup and Ollie were both attacked by an ArachniLobster near the parking lot.
 * Some believe the tentacles from the loading dock to belong to the Behemoth. However, this is very unlikely, as the behemoth only has tentacles above its head and around it's thorax, and even then, these tentacles are nowhere near long enough to extend more than half the length of the behemoth's legs. It can be presumed advantageous for Behemoth's tentacles to stretch to reach to the ground to feed (or for one tentacle to extend many times beyond its apparent length and retract into a cavity like a chameleon's tongue), this feature would make sense to increase the array of food it can absorb (by reaching creatures and water at ground level), although we can also presume that had the tentacle been part of a Behemoth the walking steps of a gigantic creature nearby might have been heard (or felt).
 * Although the creatures were exterminated in the film universe, some fans have speculated that a small handful avoided extermination and continue to roam New England.

Behind the scenes

 * The developers of Half-Life have listed The Mist as one of their primary influences for the game's plot. The first game in the series was originally going to be called Quiver, in reference to the Arrowhead military base.
 * The Silent Hill series of games may have been influenced by The Mist, since they both take place in mist-covered, monster-infested towns.
 * Similar creatures also appear in From a Buick 8, also by Stephen King.
 * The Mist may have been inspired by an earlier horror story by H.F. Arnold called The Night Wire, which was published in Weird Tales in 1926. Full story can be found here: http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Night_Wire
 * The Mist may have been one of the inspirations for the Doctor Who episode, Midnight, as both clearly show what people will do when they are frightened badly enough.

Appearances

 * The Mist, by Stephen King (First Appearance)
 * The Mist (2007 Film)