The Fog (1980)

For a guy who looks like he may have just gotten done changing the oil on my truck, John Carpenter knows how to make a damn good horror movie. Maybe I'm saying that because my truck needs an oil change and I was looking for motivation to actually go get one as I watched this movie.

Anyway, I have to admit right off the bat that I've never seen Halloween (1978) all the way through, only caught bits and pieces during what seemed like its endless airing on AMC last fall. Although that sort of turned me off to watching it anytime soon in full, I'm planning on fulfilling my horror-fan duty and seeing it before the end of the year. There, I've made the vow online. The Thing (1982) is quite possibly my favorite horror movie ever, which deserves about 30 new paragraphs of praise which I'm sure I'll write later. Carpenter had an impressive 10-year streak of horror/action/trash films that started after Halloween, included such 80's gems as Escape From New York and its sequel, Big Trouble in Little China, and concluded, in the best conceivable way to end such a streak, with They Live, which I'm not sure counts as a true movie, but probably more as a movie-quote-generator ("either put on these glasses or start eatin' that trash can"). The Fog was made during the start of this streak, and while its got some slow scenes and a handful of what are by today's standards groan-inducing cliches, I would agree with Carpenter's own assessment of the film as a "minor horror classic." Yeah, it's kinda sorta classic.

The Fog is a good ol' fashioned ghost story. The town of Antonio Bay is celebrating its centennial, which just happens to coincide with the arrival of a mysterious green fog that carries with it the bloodthirsty remains of Captain Blake and his men, who were a group of lepers hoping to set up a colony very close to Antonio Bay exactly 100 years ago. The recently settled citizens of Antonio Bay weren't going to sit around while a bunch of weirdo lepers move in next door, so as Captain Blake and his ship, "the Elizabeth Dane" sailed toward land to begin building, 6 men from town started a massive fire on the beach to distract the ship, disorienting them and eventually causing them to crash and die horrible, watery deaths. This is all explained in a pre-credits scene, by old Mr. Machen (legendary Brit John Houseman) to a group of young Boy Scouts at a campfire, which sets up the rest of the movie. One of the boy scouts has a hot mom, Stevie Wayne (Adrienne Barbeau, still very much a sex symbol in 1980), who hosts the late-night radio show at the local station, and she has a weird thing going on with the town weatherman, who calls in to whisper some cheesy sex-talk, but also to warn her of the impending fog bank approaching the town. Jamie Lee Curtis, fresh off Halloween with vocal cords in-tact and recharged, shows up as hitchhiker Liz who just happens to get picked up at the wrong time at the wrong place by local fisherman Nick (Tom Atkins, another Halloween-er). Jamie Lee's real life mother, Janet Leigh, plays the town's...I don't really know what she was...mayor's assistant or something? And then there's Father Malone, played by Hal Holbrook, who finds out he's a descendant of one of the 6 men who started the fire that killed Captain Blake and his men, and not only that, the gold that was stolen from Blake's ship is hidden at Malone's church.

So the fog rolls in of course, and the zombies of Captain Blake and his men start going around killing people. There's no gore (I don't even recall one speck of blood), only a few close-ups on some unfortunate folks as they're pierced through with fishing hooks, cutlasses and there's one dude who gets his eyes sliced into with a long knife, but it's off camera, and all of these offings are effective mainly because of the juicy sound effects. Every single scene of Blake and his men arriving is scary as hell. Carpenter's sparse, tense direction is on point during these moments, and there are two especially nail-biting parts: a long, quiet take in which a doomed fisherman is crept up on from behind by a looming black shape, and then during the film's climax, as Father Malone is surrounded by walking corpses, half-shrouded by the fog, their eyes start to glow red as they pull out their swords, the effect is chilling and the words "THIS GUY IS SCREWED" are all but written on the screen in front of you. Actually, some of these scenes really reminded me of the illustrations for the kids horror collection, Scary Stories to Tell In the Dark, which scared the crap out of me when I was little:



There are a few other, though not quite as effective, scenes of scary stuff like a dry wooden plank suddenly starting to leak water, and a cheap "jump" moment where Father Malone sneaks up on Janet Leigh's character as she enters the church, which is followed by a very awkward exchange between the two actors, which I'm not sure was intentional. In fact, as much as I like Hal Holbrook, I thought there was a really strange rhythm to the way he would deliver his lines, like towards the end he's mumbling something about the "6 original conspirators!" and everyone else starts arguing overtop of him, and when they stop, he sort of finishes his lines in a confused daze. That's a minor quibble, though, because I think his character is intended to be a bit of a tippler, as evidenced by the scene between he and Bennett (John Carpenter himself) where's he's knocking back the wine chalice, and hey, he's just realized that zombies want to kill him, so he's got every right to be dazed. There's also a long, explanatory middle section which slows everything down quite a bit, and Carpenter crosscuts between the obligatory, "they're going to kill us!" realization scene where everyone's eyes slowly widen, with a stretch of dialogue-less scenes with Adrienne Barbeau, who, while hot, couldn't quite keep me from checking the running time. Curtis, Atkins, and Leigh are all solid as they react to the carnage and "figure out a way to explain all this!" like all good traditional horror movie heroes must. Everything's kept pretty natural and restrained, and that gives the handful of creepy Blake-arrival scenes much of their impact. There's also Carpenter's signature electronic score which pulses and rumbles under key scenes which adds to the creep-factor. Again, I liked his score to The Thing much better, but it works well here. Eventually Father Malone gives the dead sailors their rightful gold and sends them back from whence they came, everyone's happy, and towards the end, Barbeau's character has an awesome monologue as she broadcasts over the radio:

"To the ships at sea who can hear my voice, look across the water, into the darkness. Look for the fog."

What a great line. I thought the film should have ended there, but then there's a twist "they're not really gone!" ending which seemed a little silly and tacked on to me.

But all in all, a solid, traditional horror film, if a little slow and cliched for nowadays. I'd recommend it to those looking for something older, low-gore, and maybe even family-friendly, but who still want good scares.

I read that Carpenter shot this film in anamorphic widescreen Panavision to give it the "big budget" feel, even though it only cost $1 million, a relatively low budget even in 1980. The scenes of Adrienne Barbeau's son on the beach and much of the static wide shots of the town look amazing, although I'm not sure if the interiors and night stuff would have been hurt that much by using an ordinary lens. Also Carpenter was very dissatisfied after viewing an early cut of the film and decided to trash 30% of it (!). So 1/3 of the film is from reshoots, including the opening boy scout scene, and the more violent stuff, the close ups, inserts of people getting killed. And then after coming off of the high he felt with Halloween being such a hit, he was understandably disappointed when The Fog didn't go over nearly as well with audiences when released. By now it's collected a sizeable fanbase and then there was that remake in 2005 which apparently has a 5% (FIVE PERCENT) rotten rating on rottentomatoes.com. That means THREE people out of FIFTY FIVE rated it positive. I've got that lined up on Netflix because I need to watch a comedy. Please please please let that movie be funny and not just horrible.

Finally, what the hell is a "stomach pounder?" At one point, the Barbeau character's son asks "Mom, can I have a stomach pounder and a coke?" I was cracking up. Ah...never mind, it's a cheeseburger, I think. I just looked it up. Now I, too, would like a stomach pounder and a coke.