The Fog (1980)
The Fog has enjoyed a bit of a critical resurgence in recent years, honored as one of John Carpenter’s classics alongside others like Halloween and The Thing. At the time it was released it was a commercial success but recieved mixed reviews and even Carpenter felt the movie didn’t work. Critical re-evaluation has been very kind to this movie and even though I’m not quite as effusive about this movie as others, it has a real spooky simplicity that I love.
Carpenter originally made this movie about a small California coastal town besieged by murderous ghosts hidden in a thick fog as a sort of modern-day Val Lewton movie but after first screening the film he felt that it didn’t work as is and went back to add scares and gore. My only real gripe with this movie is that it takes a bit too long to get where it’s going. The movie opens up strong but then decides to take a whole big chunk between the opening night and the climax to set up all the story beats, I would have preferred either a fleshing out of the town and the other people within it or to just have the plot unfold over one long night as the fog rolls in.
The Fog (2005)
The 2005 remake of The Fog does very little to distinguish it from the original movie. Our lead characters have a fair amount more story but they feel far less fleshed out than the characters in the original. The stab-happy revenants of the original film have been replaced by more traditional looking ghosts that manipulate objects and so the kills make this feel like a toothless PG-13 Final Destination film.
Smallville’s Tom Welling is a limited actor but he does his best to prop up the movie with the help of Lost’s Maggie Grace. The ending just sort of comes out of nowhere and has very little rhyme of reason, it’s just a thing that sort of happens.
Is it a good remake?
It tries, but no. For the most part the movie sticks to the outline of the original movie, all the big and many of the small moments you remember are here. Unfortunately, this movie clocks in at an hour and forty minutes which is way too much for this bare of a plot. As such, even though the fog doesn’t roll in in earnest until the same time as the original (about and hour and five minutes in) the movie feels like it takes twice as long to get there. Once the fog does roll in it’s apparent that nobody has any idea what to do with the ghosts if they’re not just rotten waterlogged corpses with hooks and scythes like in the original. It’s not the lack of blood that makes the death scenes feel toothless, they’re just poorly done.
Does it stand on its own?
Look, the early 2000s was not a great time for horror and 2005 represents the point when things finally started trending for the better. The Fog has that early ‘00s Dark Castle feel without the over-the-top gore that made those movies memorable. The Fog is a mid-tear early ‘00s supernatural horror movie along the lines of Ghost Ship or Darkness Falls. Is it better than those? Maybe? Probably not? I don’t know but it’s exceedingly okay and that’s the best I can say.
Watch, Toss, or Buy?
I don’t think this is a bad movie per se but it’s pretty forgettable, so toss it.