John Carpenter's The Fog (1980)

[slayrrr666]

“John Carpenter’s The Fog” is one of Carpenter’s finest films.

**SPOILERS**

It’s the 100th Anniversary of the death of a horrific maritime disaster for Antonio Bay, and as night-fall approaches, a mysterious fogbank rolls in. A fishing trawler is lost in the fog, and Nick Castle, (Tom Atkins) is assigned to go find it while the rest of the town prepares for the celebration. When he finds the trawler, he brings it back into town, which has been experiencing supernatural occurrences all day. He goes to Kathy Williams, (Janet Leigh) who finds out the truth about the town’s celebration. That night, the ghosts attack the town, hiding inside of the fogbank, leaving DL Stevie Wayne, (Adrienne Barbeau) to lead the surviving towns-members into the local church and safety from the ghosts.

The Good News: As this is one of the early films made from Carpenter’s early career, which was filled with classics, this one is also in that class. It’s the most underrated of his classics, and features so many Carpenter-isms: the beautiful shots, the great characters, and a classic old-school feel. The shots in here are simply marvelous, and it looks quite spectacular. This is right on par with his best movies, and it really will appeal to the cinematic fans out there. The characters are so normal for these films, and as such doesn’t need to be explained in here. Also, the film is just dripping with an old-school feel. There is a feel in here to try to replicate the old ghost stories with the film. The way they come back into the action is great, and it has an old-school feel to it, which is what these films should have. It’s a pretty classic-horror film aura around it, and it proves that it doesn’t need a bucket-full of gore to be disturbing, which is shocking considering when it came out. It speaks volumes about the power of the story and script to be like that and still be great. Of course, most of that goes to the special effects in the film, which are quite innovative and work quite well. The sights of the ghostly fog creeping around buildings, down streets, congregating in specific areas and the story about it that is spoken makes it that much more powerful a source. The opening is pretty great and spooky, and it builds loads of tension quickly.

The Bad News: Sometimes, I feel as though it been a little faster. There were plenty of occasions where the story got bogged down because of the high amount of side-plots all needing their breathing space, that probably didn’t need to have as much time as they did. This is merely a problem because there is a lot going on, and certain subplots had a little more weight to them than others, and so by giving precedence to one over the other, it gave the film a little bit of a slower pace and an overall convoluted atmosphere.

The Final Verdict: This is one of Carpenter’s best films, and it features a little bit of something for everyone. A slow pace isn’t the worst thing a movie can be accused of. Carpenter fans will no doubt love this one, and all fans of the old-school horror feel should track this one down at once.

Rated R: Violence and Language

[Fenril]

I love most Carpenter movies and this is no exception. The man is incredibly good at creating a scary atmosphere.

"The fog" was a very good scary movie; while I agree with you comment that there are maybe too many subplots (or perhaps too many secondary characters) at one point, I think by the end this helped to give the sense that the entire town (not just a handful of people) is under siege by the ghosts.

This was another classic that was given the recent remake treatment. And like very nearly all of their ilk, the remake had no further relevance whatsoever.

[slayrrr666]

Regarding the plot issue, it does make sense that it's an entire town, but the high number of secondary characters seems here to almost take centerstage, managing to throw out the notion of a lead (since Tom, Jaime, Janet and Hal can all lay claim to being the main one here) but frankly, deciding on one to follow while the others come in to interact around them might've been better, since we get involved in one story, then we go over to another and spend time with theirs, then we have to go back and do the exact same thing with another story, plus we still have the fog's actions to follow as well, and it becomes overkill at one point trying to follow all the storylines.

Focusing on one while keeping the others rotating around (which I happen to enjoy about the remake, amongst other areas) is that it streamlines the story and becomes much easier to follow as it revolves around a lead and has the secondary characters revolving around them, while still having their time, makes for a much smoother viewing.