I'm far too sarcastic for my own good and have a sense of humour that could charitably be described ...
I'm far too sarcastic for my own good and have a sense of humour that could charitably be described as bizarre. I am also being edged out of my home by books and DVDs and currently considering where my tent woud look best in the garden.
Member since:22.05.2009
Reviews:10
'The Fog' is a 1979 horror film directed by John Carpenter (Halloween, The Thing, Assault on Precint 13, Starman). It stars Adrienne Barbeau, Jamie Lee Curtis, John Houseman, Janet Leigh and Hal Halbrook.
It begins with a eerie story told around a campfire by an old and grizzled sailor to a group of young children. The story is of a ship, the Elizabeth Dane, which sank a hundred years ago just off their small Californian town, Antonio Bay. As the film begins the town is just getting ready to celebrate its centennial year, but spooky things are happening in the Bay and Father Malone (Hal Holbrook) has just discovered a rather unsavoury secret about the towns forefathers that puts a grisly spin on the festivities...
This film suffers a bit from splitting the main action between two heroines. Stevie Wayne (Adrienne Barbeau) is the owner of a radio station and mother of a young son Andy (Ty Mitchell). She hosts the station's nighttime show and is witness to a mysterious glowing fog that appears to have a life of its own. As this fog rumbles in she is completely cut off from the rest of the town, including her son. Elizabeth Solley (Jamie Lee Curtis) is a young hitchhiker drawn into the strange events of the town by a chance encounter with Nick Castle (Tom Atkins) and in the climax of the film joins some of the town's key characters as they try to shelter in the church.
The film has some genuinely scary moments and an unsettling concept- that murderous figures travel in the fog. (I'm saying 'figures' because of numerous disagreements I've had with my family over whether they are lepers, or pirates. I concede that they all began as lepers, but they illegally boarded a boat and committed murder on the sea, so I say they've all become pirates. Plus, they have hooks.) Anyway, I digress. As I was saying, there are some scary 'shock' moments and also some moments that made the hair on the back of my neck stand up, but I can't shake the feeling that there could have been more of them, especially when the central concept of the film was so good and the director was John Carpenter. The acting at times can feel a bit stilted, and the dialogue feels slightly underwritten so the characters do not always seem to 'gel' as it were. Jamie Lee Curtis does a good acting job here but is let down by an underwritten role, probably the result of splitting the action between two female leads. The effects are reasonable for the times, but a close-up of one of the figures decaying head actually blunted my fear, rather than adding to it. In this film I think more is achieved by keeping the figures in the shadows and leaving things to the imagination. The soundtrack is quite good and slightly reminiscent of Carpenter's earlier 'Halloween', but doesn't linger in the memory as long and is not as eerie.
Despite the fact that all of the before mentioned makes me feel slightly disappointed for what *could* have been, this is still an above average horror film and one of my favourites ever since I saw it as a young kid. It may make you feel slightly apprehensive every time a fog appears on the horizon however.
This 2008 edition of 'The Fog' includes the original theatrical trailer and a thirty minute 'making of' documentary, 'Tales from the Mist' which includes interviews with Carpenter and Debra Hill (who co-wrote the script along with Carpenter). It has a bit about how they came up with the concept for 'The Fog' (sparked off by a visit to Stonehenge where they became encircled in a mist), how they created the effects, and also reveals that the initial test screening of the film was not a success and resulted in them having to hurriedly add more scares for the audience.
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Good review. This film was a attempt by Carpenter to get away from the slasher genre and falls into his group under siege horror movies like 'Prince of Darkness' and 'The Thing.'
morticiaaddams 14.06.2009 16:54
Good review.. a friend of mine used to be obsessed with this movie - I wonder why.
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