The Fog

The Fog; Horror, USA, 1980; D: John Carpenter, S: Jamie Lee Curtis, Janet Leigh, Adrienne Barbeau, Hal Halbrook, Nancy Loomis

Antonio Bay, Northern California. The inhabitants are getting ready for the upcoming celebration in honor of their city's 100th anniversary, but one night they are surprised by a mysterious fog that covers everything. A power outage occurs, while mysterious figures show up which kill some people. The next morning the fog is gone while reverend Malone discovers what going on thanks to an old diary: the figures are ghosts of sailor Blake that were killed by the great-great-grandfathers of the town. Elizabeth, one resident of the town, discovers Blake's treasure in the church, a golden cross, and returns it to the ghosts that stop terrorizing the place.

"The Fog" enjoys a solid cult reputation, but as a whole it's just a schematically made film with very little attractions to offer, an achievement realized without any particular effort from John Carpenter that's not on the same level as the best horrors, like Coppola's "Dracula" or Murnau's "Faust". The spooky story has it's charm, but it's developed inertly as well as the characters that end up looking like one dimensional puppets, except in few exceptions like in the sequence where Elizabeth (Jamie Lee Curtis) asks a stranger, who took her along in his car when she was hitchhiking, if he is perverted, upon which he jokingly says that he is, making her reply with: "Oh, thank God! I was already starting to get worried you were normal!" The fog and the glowing lights inside her are truly interesting and almost reach a semi-esoteric touch, especially when appearing over the horizon on the sea, but Carpenter himself said it's not one of his best films.

Grade:+