HugeReviews.com Reviews:
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The Fog
by Jorge Solis, Resident John
Carpenter Expert
Super
John
Carpenter's The Fog is about a young generation haunted by its
ancestors' past. Their ancestors committed a horrible murder motivated
by hate and greed. The past comes after the young generation through a
fog. Inside the fog are angry zombies with hooks and swords. These
zombies are the victims of a conspiracy plot and they want revenge.
The
opening of The Fog is slow but it tells the audience what to expect. The
movie starts with an old man telling a ghost story around a campfire.
The actor, John Houseman, tells his ghost story to children who pay
close attention to him. The creepy music in the background, the actor's
voice, and the children make the scene work. The ghost story is
necessary so that it can build the premise of why the fog is killing the
inhabitants of Antonio Bay. There are a lot of repetitions during the
killings.
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The scenes go back and
forth which make them effective. Even though the killings aren't bloody,
they are grisly. You do hear the sounds of eyes being poked with a hook
even though you don't see it. The zombies are never seen, which leaves
it to the audience's imagination. The zombies are always in darkness
and it doesn't help that the female characters can't see in the fog.
The women in The Fog
own the movie. Jamie Lee Curtis, the second time working with John
Carpenter, is the scream queen. Janet Leigh is the comic relief and
Nancy Loomis is her spunky sidekick whose timing is perfect with her
sarcastic remarks. Adrienne Barbeau does a fine job playing a single
mother who can't protect her son from murdering zombies. The movie is
filled with symbolic lights and shadows.
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The audience knows who the
zombies are after through red lights. The audience first meets Jamie Lee
Curtis at the reflection of a jeep's rear window. Her face and body are
covered by a red glow. In another scene, red lights shine on Janet Leigh
as she enters the church. One of the few men in this movie is Tom
Atkins, who plays Nick Castle (true John Carpenter fans would find this
funny). As Nick Castle, Tom Atkins tells a story about his childhood to
Jamie Lee Curtis in the boat scene. Notice in the scene how the light
moves from left to right. One second Tom Atkins is in the light and then
next, he is in darkness.
Listen to what he says in
the light and then in the darkness. Here is some background information
I know. This movie was John Carpenter and Debra Hill's third
collaboration. Adrienne Barbeau and John Carpenter were married
during the time this movie was made in 1979. Sad to say but they
divorced years later. Tom Atkin's character Nick Castle is
the name of a real person. Nick Castle is the screenwriter who co-wrote
with John Carpenter on the movie, Escape from New York. The fans of John
Carpenter will see regular Charles Cyphers but hard-core fans get to see
Napoleon. Darwin Joston played the infamous Napoleon in John Carpenter's
Assault on Precinct 13. Darwin Joston makes a cameo
appearance as Doctor Phibles in The Fog.
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The Fog starts out slow,
then fast, and finally it goes hyper fast. As a musician, John
Carpenter's score is haunting and creepy. His music makes a
beautiful location like Antonio Bay seem so sad and ugly, especially
during the daylight. As a director, John Carpenter plays with suspense
as if it were a bomb counting down. Even after the climatic battle at
the church, John Carpenter still has a little fire left in his bomb.
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The
Fog
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The
DVD
The film is great, a classic horror
movie. After you've watched in a few times and feel like
watching it again, but want something more, just hit the menu
button and choose "commentary on," sit back and listen
to John Carpenter and Debra Hill talk about their
creation.
Remember, here's a movie that had two
writes and has one directing it, John Carpenter, and the other,
Debra Hill, producing it. |
Tales From the Mist
and Fear on Film - Inside "The Fog"
Here are two great commentaries; I
enjoyed them both. The fact that they're done 20 years
apart is film-buff-heaven in itself.
I'm a Carpenter fan who was dragged
here kicking and screaming. Horror movies aren't my favorite
genre; they've gotten too gory for my comfort level. John
Carpenter, however much or little gore he uses, makes horror
flicks of the Dracula, Werewolf ilk. The
Fog and the accompanying special features on this DVD are
not only enjoyable to a person with my tastes, but modern day
horror loves have told me they like it too. |
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Pure Creep
by Christian De Matteo
Super
At the time of my writing
this, the year of our Lord, October 21, 2005, (I've always wanted to use
that phrase), the number one movie in the country is Rubert Wainwright's
remake of The Fog. John Carpenter has been given both a
producing and screenwriting credit on it, and the movie has managed to
wrest the number one spot from Wallace and Gromit's Curse of the
Were-Rabbit, a kids movie that probably gives more chills per-capita
than the Tom Welling/Superman Fog retread.
While I immediately went to see the Assault on Precinct 13
remake, and am an incredibly big John Carpenter fan, nothing about this
remake has grabbed me at all.
Part of the reason for this, is that I didn't think I really liked
the original all that much. But, you hear something get talked
about so much, and what do you do? You go over to the old DVD
shelf and dust off your copy of the 1979 Fog.
And hot-diggity damn. The only explanation that comes
immediately to mind as to why I didn't have this firmly remembered in my
head as a terrific chiller, would have to do with the astounding amount
of drinking I was doing at the time I purchased the DVD. I know
for a fact that I missed out on the endings of several great flicks (Bulworth
comes to mind) because by the time the third act showed up, I was three,
four, or even five sheets to the wind.
Luckily those days have passed, and as I watched John Carpenter's
The Fog anew, I was blown away by the sincerity of the film.
That's right, the sincerity. The film is as real, as
un-self-conscious and as natural as a film about the un-natural can get.
It's about people we can believe, people we might just be, all at
different moments, completely independent of each other when the Fog
hits, and people who react, all at a totally different level of
understanding of what the Fog is, even when the credits roll. No
character is harped on too much, there is no single hero to be found.
There are just people, regular, fishing community folk, reacting to a
situation that has suddenly happened. When the film is over,
they're still fishing community folk, but those who have survived
something incredible... and incredibly beyond their powers of
comprehension.
Even the pacing is natural, the film tripping along, mostly as
oblivious as the fair denizens of Antonio Bay of the oncoming evil,
until suddenly you realize you've been engulfed completely in the Fog,
having totally missed your chance to run.
The acting is terrific, Adrienne Barbeau the perfect selfless
heroine, faced with a choice between saving her son and saving her town.
Tom Atkins is great as a workaday guy who meets Jamie Lee Curtis in a
pure seventies situation and is suddenly the main man in a situation far
beyond his understanding. Like every great Carpenter hero and
heroine, the only thing he truly understands is that he must act.
This is a great movie, a great horror movie. Doling out the
chills in perfect amounts and delivering the true scares at the critical
moments, The Fog works still, roughly 25 years later, as well as
it did when it was released, another great Carpenter/Hill collaboration,
and I'm sure, vastly superior to this remake.
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