Amazon.com: Horror master John Carpenter offers up a triple treat with The Fog: Jamie Lee Curtis, Adrienne Barbeau, and Janet Leigh all in the same movie. As if that weren't enough, both John Houseman and Hal Holbrook make appearances, each clearly enjoying the novelty of being in a horror flick. The Fog opens just before the centennial celebration of the seaside town of Antonio Bay. Then the witching hour strikes, glowing fog rolls in, and all hell breaks loose. Carpenter wrote the script with producer Debra Hill, his collaborator on Halloween, and the two know their craft. It's a creepy story and a tight script, and, as in their previous effort, the audience gets to know the main characters a bit before they're put in danger. The movie also has a sly sense of humor: "Things seem to happen to me," says slasher vet Jamie Lee. "I'm bad luck." Barbeau is also obviously having a great time, sinking her teeth into her role as a frightened disc jockey watching the fog roll in from a lighthouse. The Fog offers a few shocks and plenty of good old-fashioned clammy chills. You'll never look at weather systems the same way again. --Ali Davis
Polite zombies always knock first I've never seen The Fog except in snippets on television. My wife, on the other hand, saw it at a Girl Scout movie night, which is either a cruel trick or a hilarious joke, depending on you perspective. Certainly, the movie scared the heck out of the poor girls watching it and my wife remembers it vividly.
Anyway, this gave the movie something of a reputation at our house that made it required viewing. With the release of the awful remake, I decided it was time for me to bone up on a little chunk of cinema history by John Carpenter, master of action horror.
The movie is essentially a ghost story: settlers of a coastal town led a ship full of lepers to their deaths, stole their gold, and went on to prosper. On the eve of the hundred-year celebration, six souls will be claimed in vengeance.
There are several protagonists in this film: Stevie Wayne (the smoky-voiced Adrienne Barbeau) the radio DJ, Kathy Williams (Janet Leigh) as the mayor, Elizabeth Solley (Jamie Lee Curtis) the loose hitchhiker, and Father Malone (Hal Holbrook) as the boozy priest. Malone discovers a diary that details the pending doom about to befall the town. Wayne, who runs her radio station from a lighthouse, is uniquely positioned to use the power of 80s technology to track the fog. Williams frets over the loss of her husband at sea and bravely leads the candlelight vigil on the eve of the ceremony despite the town losing power. And finally Solley...well Solley sleeps around and gets scared a lot.
The Fog is hardly perfect. It's obvious Curtis' character exists as a box office draw. She has nothing to do but tag along. There's at least one scene where the fog looks like a kid's chalk drawing being dragged across a piece of celluloid. And viewed abstractly, there's something hilarious about zombies dressed in pirate garb who are polite enough to knock on the door rather than breaking into your house with outstretched hands, Romero-style.
And yet The Fog is one scary movie. John Carpenter's score, while reminiscent of Halloween, is scary in its own right. Wayne's helplessness and terror, as she shifts from sultry on-air voice to a mother terrified for her son, is palpable. And the glowing fog, when the special effects are up to snuff, is truly terrifying. Carpenter knows when to show his zombies and when not to show them, and it's a credit to his nascent (at the time) moviemaking skills that even when the zombies show up, they're scary enough that the glowing red eyes of the lead zombie burn in your memory long after the movie has faded.
There are also a variety of nods to Lovecraft throughout the film, including Machen, Whateley, and Arkham, which just goes to show that Carpenter actually knew his horror roots. The special features are illuminating as well, explaining the moviemaking process Carpenter went through as well as the reshoots. I'm pleased to report the movie is better for it.
Years later, when my wife saw this movie, she was still creeped out by it. But she's comforted by the knowledge that when the zombies come in the fog...at least they'll knock first.
John Carpenter's Sophomore movie - THE FOG For me they could have done more with this movie. Coming off the success of "HALLOWEEN" this movie lacked a good storyline. It's kinda like the fog came from no where and then returned to no where. Until the end of the movie do you understand why dead people were coming out of the fog & killing people. If your just getting into watching some of John Carpenter's movies check out some of his other movies this one isn't recommended. I rate this movie a 6 from 1to10!!
An underrated classic!! When this movie was released in theaters in 1979/1980, it was considered to be "John Carpenter's worst mistake", but today, it is considered as a total horror classic !
I don't know what people where thinking back in the 80's when they said this movie was terrible, I mean, from the first moment I saw it, I totally liked it and it scared the hell out of me !
I was something about 7 or 8 years old when I first saw it, it scared me a lot, but let me tell you right now I'm 19, almost 20, and it still scares me so much, you never get bored of watching it, specially if it is in a cold, rainy weather at night, besides, the atmosphere of this movie is so great, it has that carpenter's style of horror from Halloween, Halloween 2, and possibly Halloween 3. Go ahead and watch "The fog" ! !
Greetings!
Stands the test of time... John Carpenter's "The Fog" is one of those movies that traumatized me in my youth. Legit scares, great atmosphere, and frightening protagonists, "The Fog" is a must have for horror fans.
With the ususal cast of Carpenter dependables, the story is masterfully woven during the celebration of a town's founders. But a local priest, played by Hal Holbrook, discover the sinister origins of the town, and the reason for the peculiar fog bank and paranormal activity in the city.
To this day, this movie still provides chills and scares for me almost 25 years later. The soundtrack provided by Carpenter is the key to the scares, in my opinion.
3.5 STARS: Atmospheric ghost story that can produce chills in the audience. John Carpenter has long been one of my favorite horror movie directors ever since I can remember liking horror movies. Actually, I like many of his other movies too like the sci-fi/horror classic "The Thing" and the underrated "Escape from New York" just to name a few. To say that "Halloween" is the movie that has defined his career would be an understatement. Certainly, it was after the blockbuster success of "Halloween" that Carpenter realized that he really had a knack for horror cinema.
A couple of years later in 1980, Carpenter made "The Fog" which was no where near the success of "Halloween", but one can see similarities in style and in the cast as well. While certainly not a classic, "The Fog" is an atmospheric ghost story that is creepy enough for a late night horror viewing experience. Carpenter does a good job once again of creating suspense and building tension in the audience. The fog itself is a brilliant mechanism to keep the audience in the dark about the evil that is lurking within the fog. The dark manifestations of the apparitions are quite creepy.
The story behind the fog is interesting to a certain degree, and it does make sense. However, "The Fog" may have explained too much to the viewer because sometimes it is the lack of motive behind the horrific acts of the villain that makes us scared. Not that it hurts the movie too much, but Carpenter tries to explain things in this movie and some of the mystery behind the supernatural (at least with regard to motive) is unfortunately lost. In other words, Carpenter humanizes the supernatural with the motive in this movie, and that reduces the horror to a certain extent. Consequently, the movie really is not that scary, but it is creepy, atmospheric and eerie at times. Once again, I love the pulsating mood music Carpenter employs in "The Fog", but it is not enough to make this movie into a classic. I think it is interesting that many people perceive "The Fog" as a classic now as opposed to when it came out because when it first came out, it was not exactly received all that well. However, as time has gone by, people perceive "The Fog" to be somewhat of a classic, and I think that is the product of time itself. In other words, a decent movie like "The Fog" back in the early 80s has been given classic status nowadays because of the garbage that has been produced in the horror genre over the last seventeen plus years.
Still, "The Fog" is a good and creepy movie with quite a few eerie scenes. I was very impressed with the acting in this movie. I thought it was really interesting the way Carpenter used so many familiar faces in this movie from the original "Halloween". Jamie Lee Curtis, Nancy Loomis and Charles Cyphers were all in "Halloween". Tom Atkins would also star in "Halloween III" as did Nancy Loomis to the tune of a lesser role. Adrienne Barbeau also starred in several Carpenter movies including "Escape from New York" as did Charles Cyphers to a lesser role. I believe Carpenter and Barbeau would marry as well. Alas, I digress. The point is that there are quite a few familiar faces in this movie from other Carpenter movies, and along with the directing, the acting was very good. The special effects are pretty good for this type of movie, but there is very little blood and gore much to the chagrin of you gorehounds out there.
The concept behind "The Fog" is probably the kind of idea that looks great on paper, but is actually very difficult to execute as a convincing horror flick. I have always argued that ghost stories and haunted house movies are the most difficult horror movies to make, and while it does not have to be realistic per se, it does need to be convincing...there is a difference. For the most part, Carpenter was able to pull this off, but toward the end, I think the savvy horror movie viewer can see that the supernatural element to this movie was difficult to develop and remain scary at the same time. In a sense, one has to keep the interest of the viewer without revealing too much at the same time, and that is difficult to do. For all intents and purposes, Carpenter achieves this in "The Fog", but for one reason or another, this movie just is not a classic, probably because of how difficult it is to execute and the limitations of what one can do with a movie like this. In other words, "The Fog" really does not have the potential to be a classic horror movie in the true sense of the term.
In conclusion, "The Fog" is an entertaining and creepy horror movie that is good for rainy Saturday nights, preferably late because I think one is better able to identify with and relate to the spirit of the movie under the right circumstances. In wrapping this review up, I should point out that the remake of "The Fog" was an absolute disaster, so I would advise you not to waste your time or money there.
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