And there are bad Stephen King movies: “Maximum Overdrive,” “Graveyard Shift,” “Thinner,” to name but a handful.

“The Mist,” though written and directed by Frank Darabont, the man who made “Shawshank,” falls firmly in the latter category.

It’s a product of the “AAA* * * * *

!” school of horror filmmaking.

As in: “AAA* * * * *

! Giant slimy serrated tentacles are tearing me to pieces!”

And: “AAA* * * * *

! Monster bugs from Dimension X are eating my face off!”

Not to mention: “AAA* * * * *

! I paid nine bucks and change to see this junk?”

“AAA* * * * *

!”

Mercy.

When a strange impenetrable fog envelops a supermarket in rural Maine, bad things begin to happen. Outside in the haze, incredibly cheesy-looking special-effects creatures nosh on any hapless human who happens to cross their path.

Inside the store incredibly awful acting is committed by performers who ought to know better. And yes, I’m talking about you, Oscar-honored Marcia Gay Harden, raving maniacally in the role of a religious fanatic, going all fire-and-brimstone and demanding human sacrifice to appease an angry God and fend off the End Times.

And you, too, Andre Braugher, hyperventilating as a crabby lawyer who doesn’t buy into the notion that his neighbors are becoming finger food for fiends from hell. You’ve come a long, sad way from your heyday in “Homicide: Life on the Street.”

In the role of the hero, a father trying to protect his young son from those foul fiends, Thomas Jane is solid and stolid and pretty much forgettable.

“The Mist,” too, would be utterly forgettable except for its ending, which is shockingly downbeat. I won’t play spoiler here, but I predict when word of the characters’ fate gets out via word of mouth, people will shun this picture like the plague. * *

The Mist

Director: Frank Darabont

Cast: Thomas Jane, Marcia Gay Harden, Andre Braugher, Laurie Holden, Toby Jones

Running Time: 2:07

Rating: R; violence, gore, language

Where: In wide release