HALLOWEEN 2K20: John Carpenter Tribute - A Review of "The Fog"

This is what you see working third shift at a grocery story and watching the crazy people who live out where the buses don't run just stroll in.

Well, well. Welcome back everyone! John Carpenter has been expecting you. Actually he probably hasn't, but if he ever finds this loving tribute to his collection of films, I hope he's at least mildly amused. Now, welcome back Spoiler Alert's Halloween 2K20 series, this year celebrating the life and times of John Carpenter by reviewing all of his most well known films. At least... the ones I consider well known. Which is a tad cheap since opinions are subjective, but hey, it's my blog; nah nah nah-nah nah.

Alright, I'm going to drive to the church for
safety. But first... does anyone want Taco Bell?

So what are we talking about today? Well, we're going to talk about a ghost story! A good ol' fashioned spooky horror tale. Following the release of Halloween, John Carpenter and his collaborator/girlfriend/writer/producer Debra Hill once visited Stonehenge in England promoting Assault on Precinct 13, and saw an eerie fog off in the distance. Carpenter and Hill would later return to America and begin work on the film. The premise? Ghosts of a crew betrayed by the town of Antonio Bay's ancestors one hundred years prior return to the town, concealed in a ghostly unholy fog that rolls in. Aside from the visit to Stonehenge, John Carpenter stated that the inspiration for the story was partly drawn from the British film The Trollenberg Terror, which dealt with monsters hiding in the clouds. In the DVD audio commentary for the film, Carpenter noted that the story of the deliberate wreckage of a ship and its subsequent plundering was based on an actual event that took place in the 19th century near Goleta, California. So let's dive right into this eerie, actually quite fascinating ghost story and figure out what makes it so creepy! This is John Carpenter's The Fog.

"Don't ask why they have an entire locker within
this clipper boat. I don't get it either."

As the coastal town of Antonio Bay, in Northern California is about to celebrate its 100th anniversary, paranormal activity begins occurring at midnight. Town priest Father Malone (Hal Holbrook) discovers his grandfather's diary at the church after a piece of masonry falls from the wall, and the journal reveals that in 1880, the six founders of Antonio Bay (including Malone's grandfather) deliberately sank a clipper ship named the Elizabeth Dane, so that its wealthy, leprosy-afflicted owner Blake (Rob Bottin) would not establish a leper colony nearby. The conspirators used gold plundered from the ship to fund the town.

Meanwhile, three fishermen are out at sea when a strange, glowing fog envelops their trawler. The fog brings with it the Elizabeth Dane, carrying the vengeful revenant ghosts of Blake and his crew who kill the fishermen in brutal fashion. Meanwhile, town resident Nick Castle (Tom Atkins) is driving home and picks up a young hitchhiker named Elizabeth Solley. As they drive towards town, all the truck's windows inexplicably shatter. The following morning, local radio DJ Stevie Wayne (Adrienne Barbeau) is given a piece of driftwood by her son Andy; it is inscribed with the word "DANE", and Andy (Ty Mitchell) says he found it on the beach. Intrigued, Stevie takes it with her to the lighthouse where she broadcasts her radio show. She sets the wood down next to a tape player that is playing, but the wood inexplicably begins to seep water, causing the tape player to short circuit. A mysterious man's voice emerges from the tape player swearing revenge, saying "Something that one lives with like an albatross round the neck. No, more like a millstone. A plumbing stone, by God! Damn them all!", and the words "6 must die" appear on the wood before it bursts into flame. Stevie quickly extinguishes the fire, but she then sees that the wood once again reads "DANE" and the tape player begins working normally again. Some spooky stuff! I love this scene.

"I don't like the look of that ghostly glowing fog...
I also don't like the looks of those teenagers
breaking into that parked car..."

After locating the missing trawler, Nick and Elizabeth (Jamie Lee Curtis) find the corpse of one of the fishermen, Dick Baxter (James Canning), with his eyes gouged out. The other two are missing, one of whom is the husband of Kathy Williams (Janet Leigh), who is overseeing the town's centennial celebrations. In yet another wildly creepy scene, while Elizabeth is alone in the autopsy room, Baxter's corpse rises from the autopsy table and approaches her, before collapsing. As Elizabeth screams, Nick and coroner Dr. Phibes (Darwin Joston) rush into the room where they see the once-again lifeless corpse has carved the number 3 on the floor. Three of the six have been murdered, revenge is almost complete! That evening, as the town's celebrations begin, local weatherman Dan calls Stevie at the radio station to tell her that another fog bank has appeared and is moving towards town. As they are talking, the fog gathers outside the weather station and Dan hears a knock at the door. He answers it and is killed by the revenants as Stevie listens in horror. As Stevie proceeds with her radio show, the fog starts moving inland, disrupting the town's telephone and power lines. Using a backup generator, Stevie begs her listeners to go to her house and save her son when she sees the fog closing in from her lighthouse vantage point. As the fog envelops Stevie's house, the revenants kill her son's babysitter, Mrs. Kobritz (Regina Waldon). They then pursue Andy, but Nick arrives and rescues him.

I've already *pant* walked four hundred steps, I
can't *pant* wait for... *checks*... shit I forgot
my cellular phone."

Stevie advises everyone to head to the town's church. Once inside, Nick, Elizabeth, Andy, Kathy, her assistant Sandy (Nancy Loomis), and Father Malone take refuge in a back room as the fog arrives outside. Inside the room, they locate a gold cross in the wall cavity which is made from the gold the town's people stole from Blake's ship a hundred years prior. As the ghosts begin their attack, Malone takes the gold cross out into the chapel. Knowing that they have returned to take six lives in lieu of the six original conspirators who led them to their deaths, Malone offers the gold and himself to Blake to spare the others. At the lighthouse, more ghouls attack Stevie, trapping her on the roof. Inside the church, Blake seizes the gold cross, which begins to glow. Nick pulls Malone away from the cross seconds before it disappears in a blinding flash of light along with Blake and his crew. The revenants at the lighthouse also disappear, and the fog vanishes. Stevie gets down from the roof and makes it back to safety. After Elizabeth, Nick, Andy, Kathy and Sandy leave the church, the fog reappears inside the church along with the revenants, and Blake decapitates Malone making him the sixth and final revenge victim as the screen cuts to black...

"Hang on, everyone! Perhaps this book contains
answers on how to beat the ghosts. 'Thank you for
your purchase of a certified Microsoft 3.0 operating
system desktop computer--"

So that's The Fog. It's eerie, it's unsettling, it's quite an original story. I like the idea of a pirate ship full of ghouls arriving in modern era and somehow being more powerful than the modern boats and ships that exist in the world. The story of betrayal and rising from the dead to reclaim what was theirs creates ultimate tension. Carpenter tells the story of a town under siege while ghosts on a ghost ship arrive and cripple the town's power. The Fog came hot off the heels of Halloween, and therefore, while being a low-budget horror film, John Carpenter chose to shoot the movie in anamorphic widescreen Panavision. This decision gave the movie a grander feel for the viewer thanks to the 2:35.1 ratio so this didn't seem like a low budget horror movie. One thing of note about The Fog is its short runtime, coming in just shy of an hour and a half at eighty-nine minutes. The original cut of the film shown at a test screening was a scant eighty minutes, forcing Carpenter to shoot additional scenes to beef up the runtime. The biggest of these additions was the prologue with the elderly captain telling ghost stories to fascinated children.

"Don't turn around, don't turn around, don't
turn around, don't turn around!"

Personally, I love The Fog. I consider it another Carpenter classic. I do agree the movie is a little short and could have a lot more content. It's also definitely quite tame compared to a lot of ghost story movies nowadays. Carpenter even made a point after the first test screening to beef up the scares and the gore so that The Fog would be decent box office competition with other slasher horror movies that were coming out in 1980. I just watched it for the first time in years for this review, and there were a couple scares that startled me. I think it's the perfect balance horror film. It's not too in your face taking itself seriously, but it isn't also so tame it's boring. I think it's another marvelously creepy Carpenter centerpiece of horror fiction.

Add The Fog to your Halloween viewing list this year. You will love it. Even if you're not chattering-teeth, gripping your couch like you're going to shit your pants, you'll still be entertained by the value of the story, the appearance of Blake and his ghostly crew of revenants, and the atmosphere this movie builds. Give it a try!