JOHN CARPENTER'S THE FOG

 

 

The Fog is a 1980 horror flick directed by cult filmmaker John Carpenter. The film stars Hal Holbrook and eighties hotties Adrienne Barbeau, who was married to Carpenter at the time, and Jamie Lee Curtis (who had starred in Carpenter’s previous horror film Halloween, which is arguably his most popular film to date). The film is about a small coastal town terrorized by a mysterious fog that rolls into town one night and starts picking off the residents. Actually, John Carpenter once reportedly described this as his least favorite film, and, quite frankly, it’s not hard to see why. First off, this flick is really not all that “horrific” at least compared to the “slasher” flicks that came after it (which, ironically, Carpenter is accredited to starting with his Halloween flick) and/or the far more brutal horror flicks of recent years like the Hostel and Saw flicks. The special effects are rather cheesy even for 1980 (this was, of course, years before the advent of CGI). To be brutally honest, while I’m normally a fan of John Carpenter’s movies (or at least a good number of them anyway), I thought this was one of the most boring horror flicks I’ve ever seen. And, to tell the truth, I kind of cringed when Adrienne Barbeau--who plays a local husky-voiced DJ in the film--makes her little speech at the end when she warns others to “watch out for the fog” and whatnot. Probably the scariest part of the entire flick, at least for me, was at the very end when Hal Holbrook’s character--spoiler alert!--gets sliced in half by the head evil spirit or whatever the hell he was (and, there again, that was one of the cheesiest-looking “evil spirits” I’ve EVER seen in a horror flick). John Carpenter's The Fog might appeal more to those who would like to watch a more "traditional" horror story than the more graphic "slasher" flicks and/or more modern horror flicks like the aforementioned Hostel and Saw flicks and wouldn't mind the "dated" look of this film. However, fans of those more graphic horror flicks might find this one a bit too boring as I did. (No offense, John!) A sidenote: Earlier on this blog, I reviewed the 2005 remake of The Fog. Admittedly, I gave the remake a somewhat better review than I’ve given the original here, although I know a good number of “horror purists” would strongly disagree with me on this. But at least in the remake the special effects are a bit better--thanks, of course, to CGI!--and we get to see why the “evil spirits” within the fog have it in for the townspeople instead of just merely being told why (like, for instance, in the original at the beginning when that rather creepy old dude is telling that ghost story to those kids). Besides, this is MY movie review blog, so there!