The Fog

The Fog (1980)

Runtime: 91 minutes

Directed by: John Carpenter

Starring: Adrienne Barbeau, Jamie Lee Curtis, Janet Leigh, Tom Atkins, Hal Holbrook

From: AVCO Embassy

The viewing of this film came courtesy of TCM, who aired it late last night. I certainly wanted to watch this more than staying up to the morning hours to see again Night of the Lepus, something I had seen before long before starting this blog, and I was surprised they showed it and it wasn't TCM Underground; it's what I'll call “charmingly terrible”. But onto this movie, one that has great California scenery and plenty of atmosphere. So, onto the plot description then the Letterboxd review. I'll be back Saturday night:

“The centenary of the small seaside town of Antonio Bay, California is approaching. One hundred years ago, the wealthy leper Blake bought the clipper ship Elizabeth Dane and sailed with his people to form a leper colony. However, while sailing through a thick fog, they were deliberately misguided by a campfire onshore, steering the course of the ship toward the light and crashing her against the rocks. While the townsfolk prepare to celebrate, the victims of this heinous crime that the town's founding fathers committed rise from the sea to claim retribution. Under cover of the fog, they carry out their vicious attacks, searching for what is rightly theirs.”

Looking around on Letterboxd, I see that this movie gets a mixed review and some don't care for the plot, it being “boring” to them, the identity and implementation of the villains, and the overall quality of the picture. I understand... but I still disagree.

I admit that the story is wacky (what basically are “pirate lepers” returning on the 100th anniversary of a town's founding in order to gain revenge for some people deliberately crashing their ship in order to steal the gold on the ship and prevent the people on the boat from founding a leper colony right by what would soon be their new town) and even a little preposterous; no matter what you think of the plot, I think it's executed rather well.

The cast is rather talented and that's a big asset; there's Janet Leigh and her daughter Jamie Lee Curtis, Tom Atkins-sadly sans mustache-Adrienne Barbeau, Hal Holbrook and even cult actor Buck Flower in a bit part. The musical score from Carpenter is pretty great, as expected.

And most importantly, the scene where Hal Holbrook literally pops up out of nowhere in a hysterical manner to meet Janet Leigh... actually, the feeling of atmosphere, mood and feeling is great; all together those three aspects here were the best that Carpenter ever did. That makes up for how some of the special effects look wacky in 2014.

If you're expecting this to be an action-packed slasher or that it'll be a tense thrill ride, then yeah you probably won't get it. But if you enjoy deliberately paced thoughtful films where there's a constant atmosphere and eventually it'll envelop you like the title presence that shows up two nights in a row (or a movie where there's more than a few horror references, especially what characters are named)... then you should check out this film, which while isn't my favorite of John Carpenter, it doesn't mean it's bad or not worth seeing.