I really want to like John Carpenter’s The Fog.
I really do. I’m a huge fan of the filmmaker, and will praise his artistry and imagination to anyone who will listen (I am a staunch defender of his underrated Price of Darkness, for example). But The Fog… well, it never really worked for me. This Halloween, I decided to rewatch The Fog, seeing if I would “get it” by watching it with my wife, She Who Must Be Obeyed. MISTAKE.
She Who Must Be Obeyed had never seen it, and instead of seeing it through her eyes, hoping that she would bring a fresh and positive perspective on it… she ripped it apart. And as she criticized it, I could see the seams showing in the film’s plot. And I finally got why I didn’t like it.
It’s unfinished, incomplete. It’s a sketch, instead of the full portrait.
Now, I’m not saying Carpenter and crew did not work hard on the film, and (obviously) the film IS complete, in that it was shot edited and released in theaters in 1980. But at the same time it comes off as… undone.
The plot is thing gruel, with pirates coming back from the dead in the fog to kill six people to avenge the injustice done to them decades earlier… And the characterizations are also sketchy. Tom Atkins picks up Jamie Lee Curtis’ character (who is hitchhiking) and one scene later they are in a hotel post-coitus? Sorry, Mr. Carpenter, you want from A to C with no B in-between. In fact, those two characters are almost completely irrelevant in the film – a movie that actually has too many characters… so you have no center, no key protagonist to root for.
Carpenter, of course, has the advantage of a great ensemble to cover over the edges. In many respects, this movie is the “true” sequel to Carpenter’s Halloween… and, effectively, the entire cast from that film returns for this one. PJ Soles, Charles Cypher, and of course Jamie Lee Curtis are all back and in fine form, doing their best to elevate the material they have been given. You also have Adrienne Barbeau as a breathy DJ – Carpenter’s lover at the time, BTW – and she is beautiful to look at, but she has very little to work from. Finally, you have John Houseman, Janet Leigh and Hal Holbrook doing great work with the small roles they have… especially Holbrook, whose drunk guilt-ridden priest is an understated highlight of the film.
The Fog also explores one of Carpenter’s favorite plots/tropes, which is “diverse group of people trapped together versus an unknown threat.” We’ve seen it in… well, most of his movies, to be honest. But here, it comes off as a contrivance rather than organic.
Again, it’s not a bad film – the ambiguous ending (are the undead pirates repelled by the Cross or the gold that it is made of, stolen from them those many years ago) is nice, and the atmospheric elements and Carpenter’s score is quite good. I just wish it was a film that worked for me. If Carpenter and company had just finessed the plot and characterizations just a BIT more, it could have been.
(And by the way, I’m not the only one disappointed about how the movie turned out. A certain Mr. John Carpenter has also expressed his frustration at the constraints and rushed schedule that was required to make the film.)
Oh well. At least it’s better than the remake.