It's easy to write off monster movies. That kind of thing hasn't happened yet, so what could it possibly say about the world? After all, Tokyo is still intact, and the Empire State Building is largely unscaled. So, how could Godzilla or King Kong be knowing parables revealing deeper truths of some human experience? 

Well, it doesn't take a history degree to see that Godzilla may be hiding a second meaning not so deep beneath its scaly hide. For anyone who pays attention, it's hard to ignore the movie's parallels with the disastrous bombings of Hiroshima and Iwo Jima. That mass destruction on Japanese soil is embodied here by an atomic lizard, and the similarities are further underlined in more modern adaptations. King Kong, too, is more than meets the eye. It's not much of a stretch to view the movie as a tragedy, depicting the way humans exploit nature, only for ultimate destruction to ensue. Cloverfield is about 9/11, and Alien is about evil corporate interests. 

Like all the best monster stories, Stephen King's The Mist isn't just about monsters. Fans who may not have caught the allegory of the text found clarity when the tale hit the big screen with Frank Darabont's 2007 adaptation. The filmmaker saw what was going on under the hood, and, in retrospect, the movie seems downright prophetic.

"If you look at the year I made that movie, look at the world that we were in, the political situation here in the U.S., the cultural situation, the divide that has now become a chasm, was very much in evidence. I was hoping that that wouldn't widen, but it has. So what you had actually was an older filmmaker who was just a little more pissed off than the younger filmmaker who was so full of optimism and hope that he made Shawshank Redemption. Now I'm just kind of a pissed-off older guy, and that's what I wanted to express."

It's not difficult to read The Mist as a commentary on a worsening societal divide. All it takes is a boogieman outside the door to see where we stand with our neighbors. While The Mist offers a bleak depiction of how things fall apart, sometimes, the real world is still full of surprises. We needn't wait for disaster to strike before we come together. Instead, let's all agree on one thing: our mutual love of horror movies— and the broadcast bizarre-o's who host them on TV— is enough of a bond to weather any storm.