What can you say about director John Carpenter except that he must have had tons of crazy ideas in his head back in the 80s. As with most filmmakers, Carpenter loved all kinds of storytelling growing up. Obviously, horror, fantasy and sci-fi attracted him the most. After the success of HALLOWEEN, Carpenter delved deeper into horror with this Scream-A-Day choice – THE FOG.
Fogs are pretty scary on their own at times, but when you include some irritated ghost, you get a whole different kind of scare. Carpenter and writer Debra Hill delivered an eerie story of dead leper pirates that come back for revenge on the citizens of Antonio Bay, Ca. Jamie Lee-Curtis comes back as one of Carpenter’s lead actresses along with the sexy Adrienne Barbeau as a mother and night-time radio host.
Carpenter stuck to his horror techniques of keeping the ghostly figures mostly hidden from the audience, which heightened the fear factor a bit. And like HALLOWEEN, he took his time building up the suspense, though there were several killings from the start.
This coast line horror tale also starred classic actors Janet Leigh and John Houseman, Hal Holbrook as Father Malone, and Tom Atkins, who later starred in my first Scream-A-Day selection NIGHT OF THE CREEPS.
Unfortunately for Tom Welling (Smallville) and modern audiences, THE FOG was remade in 2005, but received an underwhelming reception from horror fans of the original.
As many of you that know me know that I love John Carpenter’s work from the eighties and early nineties. And my guilty pleasure is still the extra-terrestrial, supernatural ‘Horrible’ horror movie – GHOST OF MARS. Check out the original 1980 version of THE FOG and add it to your mental library of horror classics.
Loading tweets...
