YO HO, HO, HUM
★★☆☆☆ (Don’t Bother)
Director: John Carpenter
1980
We know giant monsters don’t rise from oceans and we know dead people can’t dig their way out of the ground, which is why most horror films require suspension of disbelief. However, when it comes to Carpenter’s (The Thing) 1980 offering The Fog—a silly and tame film about phantom pirates who pick the very day a priest finds an ominous diary to return and kill townspeople—your brain has to completely check out. Yes, this film’s better than the egregious crime that was The Fog remake, but mostly because Jamie Lee Curtis is in it, though she has no characterization unless you count “hitchhiker” as a trait. I’ve come to believe the adoration for this movie has to do with it being a sentimental favorite. Like a mediocre song you love because it reminds you of your childhood, you remember who you were when you first saw The Fog.
A small seaside town is setting up for a centennial anniversary party, and DJ Stevie (Adrienne Barbeau) in her radio booth at the lighthouse is seemingly their only link to the outside world. To be fair, Carpenter (THE THING) chose a great set piece for a horror flick, and this is probably the most striking visual in the film; the location is isolated and the lighthouse juts out from the mainland. One night while working, DJ Stevie sees a strange green fog, and the following morning her adorable son finds a piece of driftwood with “Dane” carved into it. Meanwhile, there are subplots left and right. The town’s mayor (Janet Leigh) is running around, trying to get the centennial event in order. At the church, Father Malone (the always game Hal Holbrook) finds a spooooky diary with a warning. Then we see Elizabeth (Jamie Lee Curtis) hitch a ride to the village with a middle-aged townie named Nick, and without chemistry or flirting or money exchanging hands, they somehow wind up in bed together.
I did some math and figured out that at the time of filming, this actor was twenty-three years older than Curtis. Speaking of suspension of disbelief. I’m more apt to believe ghost pirates rode a fog to reclaim their booty than a hot, young Jamie Lee Curtis got booty from a man receiving AARP benefits.
The kills are few, the special effects are fine for the times. One of The Fog’s biggest problems is that we never find out who the protagonist is. We bounce from DJ Stevie to the anxious priest to Elizabeth to Nick to the mayor, and I’m sure I forgot someone. Like most so-so horror movies, the only emotion you feel is concern for the child. The other problem is Carpenter’s (THE THING!!) insistence that we dismiss common sense. Though he does his best to sprinkle in trademark creepy scares like audio warping in the DJ booth or a dead body getting up from an autopsy table (why), characters don’t respond like normal humans to these events; not one person is alarmed that a dead guy came back to life, and Stevie is only mildly bothered when odd occurrences happen at home. Finally, there’s an afterschool message about treating diseased people with kindness, but you can’t see it through The Fog, a movie where pirates mostly stumble around and break stuff.
GENRES: Apocalyptic, Atmospheric, Monster/Creature
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