If you've given me an E and I haven't thanked you, I apologise - trying to catch up. Really apprecia...
If you've given me an E and I haven't thanked you, I apologise - trying to catch up. Really appreciate all ratings.
Member since:05.05.2005
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An island off the coast of the US is about to celebrate the hundreth anniversary of its founding when an unexpected bout of fog strikes, leaving three dead and one seriously injured. Stranger things are afoot; objects mysteriously appear on the seashore, things that seemingly have the magical power to burst into flames despite having been underwater for centuries. Nick Castle and his girlfriend, Elizabeth, slowly begin to piece together the story of their forefathers, who allowed the death of a boatful of lepers so that they could set up the island without any of the 'unclean' on it. Now, it seems, the lepers are coming back to seek their revenge by means of the fog...Can justice be done without more death?
I seem to have caught up with five years of remakes in the past month or so; The Fog 2005 is a re-make of the 1980 John Carpenter film of the same name. Not having seen the original film, I cannot compare it with this version; however if it is anything like as bad as this one, I have no particular desire to see the original anyway.
Tom Welling (of Smallville fame) plays the main character, Nick Castle. I say main character because he does appear on-screen most frequently; however, we really don't get to see all that much of him and there is certainly no time for any character development. As it is, he could have walked straight out of the Smallville set and straight
into this one - there really is no attempt to make sure that he isn't type-cast - possibly a deliberate plan on the part of the director. He provides eye candy for the girls, but that's about as much praise as I can give him - not that he is at fault for that, he is convincing enough within the confines of his role.
Maggie Grace plays Elizabeth Williams, Nick's girlfriend. Some may recognise her from Lost and she has recently been in Taken, but I have not seen any of her previous work. This isn't a film to separate her from the masses. Like Welling, she is convincing enough in the role, there just isn't very much for her to work with, and her Famous Five-like manner of falling over clues all the time is a bit silly. Selma Blair, an actress I have a great deal of time for, has a small role as Stevie, the presenter of a local radio show. Stevie could have been an interesting character, she is quirky and feisty, but again, is given no room to perform.
I didn't really have any preconceptions about the film before watching it. I suppose I was slightly intrigued to know how a fog could turn into something that killed, but as fog can be very creepy if you're stuck in it in the middle of nowhere, I thought that it was fairly acceptable to be the basis of a horror/thriller movie. Unfortunately, the cross-over between an attack of bad weather and the carnage that this fog leaves behind has not been executed very well here. The fog, for a start, looks fake, more like smoke than any fog I've ever seen. And then the reasons for the fog are never really fully explained. Okay, some people did something terrible a hundred years before - why does that result in a killer fog? If the film had been better made, I probably wouldn't have asked myself that question. As it is, the film leaves a lot to be desired and I didn't think it worked well as a story at all.
Then there are the special effects. I have watched any number of bad horrors with terrible special effects, and have forgiven them because of the period in which they were made, the low budgets or simply because the story and performances made up for it. Here we have a film made in 2005, yet the special effects are really unrealistic, and I'm not talking about the smoke-like fog here. The 'lepers' just look silly, as if they had just walked out of a bad fifties horror film and I just couldn't find them at all scary. The only time I flinched was when an arm reached out to someone through the pipes of a sink - this was actually quite well done because it was so unexpected, but wasn't enough to make me like the film overall.
There is a rating of 15 on the film, which I think is fair. There are a number of deaths, some of them not very pretty, but because the special effects aren't that life-like, they aren't anything like as scary as they could have been. Still, it is worth vetting if you are concerned about your child's film preferences. There is also a dead dog, which could be upsetting for some. I find it really annoying that today's horrors always seem to feature a dead animal - I am sure none are really harmed in the making of the film, but it just seems so unnecessary to me.
There are a number of special features. First a selection of deleted scenes, none of which are vital to the film, but did help reinforce a couple of plot threads for me. Then there are three features, covering subjects such as why the film was re-made (I wasn't convinced), how some bits were changed to up-date the story and how the special effects were made. None of these features are particularly gripping - but then they would probably mean a lot more to anyone who actually enjoyed the film. Finally, there are a number of trailers for films such as The Da Vinci Code and The Exorcism of Emily Rose.
On the whole, I didn't like this film very much. Too much was unexplained, and with the strange special effects, I just couldn't get into the spirit of the film at all. I can find something of merit in most films - and I've watched some rubbish ones in my time - but there really isn't much here at all. I suppose special effects aside, it is visually well-filmed, but not enough to make up for its other failures. Director Rupert Wainwright may have thought he was doing the world a favour by re-making this film; personally, I will he had just left well alone. I have no desire to see this film again, or the original on which it was based. If you really enjoy bad horror, then you might just get a kick out of this; otherwise stay clear.
If you still want to see it, the DVD is available from play.com for £4.99.
Production Year: 2000 - Horror - Director: Keenen Ivory Wayans - Original Language: English - Classification: 18 years and over - Starring: Carmen Electra, Anna Faris, Kurt Fuller, James Van Der Beek, Keenen Ivory Wayans
From producer John Carpenter comes the all-new retelling of his terror classic, THE FOG. ... more
Tom Welling (TV's Smallville), Maggie Grace (TV's Lost) and Selma Blair (Hellboy) star in this senses-shattering tale of demonic retribution, directed by Rupert Wa...
From producer John Carpenter comes the all-new retelling of his terror classic The Fog. ... more
Tom Welling (Smallville) Maggie Grace (Lost) and Selma Blair (Hellboy) star in this senses-shattering tale of demonic retribution directed by Rupert Wainwright (...
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