The Fog is a 1980 horror movie directed by John Carpenter, who also wrote the screenplay and composed the music of the film. It stars Adrienne Barbeau, Jamie Lee Curtis, Tom Atkins and Janet Leigh. It was distributed by AVCO Embassy Pictures. The movie is a ghost story involving mysterious events, including gruesome murders, which accompany a strange, glowing fog that spreads over land and sea.
Writer and director John Carpenter was not happy with the first cut of the film, and subsequently added several new scenes and re-shot others. Approximately one-third of the finished film is composed of re-shot footage. The film has received positive reviews, with a 69% positive rating on Rotten Tomatoes,[1] and was a commercial success. The film inspired a 2005 remake, also called The Fog.
Plot
Set in a Northern California fishing town called Antonio Bay (real location Bolinas, California, Inverness, California, Point Reyes lighthouse, Point Reyes Station, and the Episcopal Church of the Ascension in Sierra Madre, California). The town is about to celebrate its centennial on April 21, and are having a celebration led by Kathy Williams. However, the centennial is also marked by ominous events, including the appearance of a glowing fog that spreads over land and sea.
The night before the town's celebration, a group of children are entertained by a ghost story, told by 'old' Mr. Machen (exactly at the stroke of midnight), the resident elderly fisherman. The story being told is indicative of the history of the town's formation, which is being discovered at that exact moment by the local priest, Father Malone, when he finds the diary of his grandfather (who was also the town's priest). The diary later reveals a dark secret unknown to the current inhabitants where, in 1880, six of the founders of Antonio Bay (including Malone's grandfather) deliberately sank and plundered the Elizabeth Dane, a clipper ship owned by Blake, a wealthy man with leprosy who wanted to establish a colony near Antonio Bay. The six conspirators lit a fire on the beach near treacherous rocks, and the crew of the clipper, deceived by the false beacon, crashed into them. Everyone aboard the ship perished. The six conspirators were motivated both by greed and disgust at the notion of having a leper colony nearby. Antonio Bay and its church were then founded with the gold plundered from the ship.
The mysterious fog contains the vengeful ghosts of Blake and the clipper's crew, who have come back on the hundredth anniversary of the shipwreck and the founding of the town to take the lives of six people (symbolic substitutes for the six conspirators).
This same night, three local fishermen, Al Williams, Tommy Wallace, and Dick Baxter, are gruesomely murdered by supernatural attackers after the fog covers their boat. Just prior to their deaths, Al and Tommy are standing on the deck of the boat and can see a ghostly looking ship pulling along side theirs, through the dense, but glowing fog.
At the same time, Nick Castle drives down a country road and picks up a hitchhiker called Elizabeth. While the two drive towards town, the radio and headlights of the car start to fail, as the windows of the truck are blown out. At the same time, various odd phenomena begin to happen around the sleeping town (chairs move, television sets turn themselves on, gas stations seemingly come to life).
A short time later, Nick and Elizabeth have arrived at Nick's coastal home and are relaxing when a heavy knock is heard at the door. Making his way to open the glass, front door, Nick sees an odd light shining outside, illuminating a shadowy figure. The clock strikes 1AM, and it's face suddenly cracks, just as Nick opens the door, only to see there is no one there, and the fog has dissipated.
The following morning, while in her bungalow next to the beach, the local radio DJ Stevie Wayne is lying in bed when her young son, Andy, returns to the house showing her a broken plank of wood he has discovered. It reads "DANE." Intrigued by the piece, Stevie keeps it and takes it with her to the lighthouse, where she is preparing for her next show and listening to various promotional tapes for her station. Stevie sets the plank on top of the tape player that is playing the promotional spots, and while she is momentarily distracted, the plank begins to seep water. The water spreads and causes the tape player to short. Suddenly, Blake's voice emerges from the tape player swearing revenge, the words "Six Must Die" appear on the plank, and the plank bursts into flames. A shocked Stevie immediately extinguishes the fire. Afterwards, Stevie checks the plank only to find that it once again reads "DANE."
Nick and Elizabeth search the boat where the fishermen were killed, and Elizabeth finds the eyeless corpse of Dick Baxter, the youngest of the three fishermen. They then take Baxter's body to the local coroner's office to be examined by Dr. Phibes. Phibes, who is perplexed by the body's advanced state of decomposition, takes Nick aside to ask him about the circumstances of the body's discovery and leaves Elizabeth alone in the autopsy room with Baxter's corpse. The body becomes momentarily re-animated, rises from the steel autopsy table, grabs a scalpel, and walks over to Elizabeth. As Baxter's corpse moves closer to Elizabeth, she screams, and the body drops to the floor, lifeless once again. Elizabeth's screams bring Nick and Phibes rushing back into the autopsy room, where they see that the corpse has scratched the number "3" into the floor with the scalpel.
Back in Antonio Bay town center, the town's celebration begins. At the same time, Dan, the local weatherman, and Stevie talk over the phone. Stevie expresses her apprehension about the strange glowing fog that is moving toward the town. Dan then hears a knock at the weather station's door and leaves Stevie on the phone while he goes to answer it. Dan is killed when he opens the door and one of the ghosts impales him through the throat with a hook, and Stevie listens in horror.
Just when the ghosts of the fog cut the phone lines as well as sabatoge the power for the entire town, Stevie begins her radio broadcast and begs someone to get to her house and save her son when she sees the fog roll up to the house. Nick and Elizabeth hear this and go to help. Back at Stevie's house, a strange knock comes at the door. The elderly babysitter goes to answer it and tells Andy to go to his room. When she opens the door the ghosts come out of the fog and impale her on their swords and hooks. The ghosts then go after Andy. Nick arrives just in time and takes Andy in his car.
As the celebration comes to an end, Kathy and her assistant drive home in the same car. When they turn on the radio they hear Stevie repeatedly telling people to stay away from the fog as it is dangerous. When the fog appears, they drive away from it. They then hear Stevie saying the only safe place is the church, which they go to. Nick, Elizabeth and Andy hear the same message and they too go to the church. They all meet in the church as well as Father Malone, and they hide in the small back room. While they are in the room Kathy and Father Malone find the stolen gold, which has been melted into a cross. Blake's ghost and his crew begin to break into the room. Knowing he is the offspring of the last conspirator, Father Malone confronts the ghosts with the golden cross in an attempt to sacrifice himself and save everyone else.
Back at the lighthouse several of the ghosts try to attack Stevie. She climbs onto the roof with the ghosts in hot pursuit. The ghosts slowly close in on her and get ready to attack.
Back in the church, Blake's ghost grabs the golden cross. The golden cross starts to glow and the church rumbles as the light emanating from the cross becomes brighter and brighter. Only seconds before Blake's ghost and the cross disappear in a flash and a thunder Nick manages to pull Father Malone away from the cross. With Blake's ghost the other ghosts are suddenly vanished too. The fog disappears and all of the town's people are saved. Later that night when Father Malone is alone in the church, he asks himself "Why not me Blake?", at that moment the fog reappears with Blake and his men. Blake swings his sword at Father Malone's head, decapitating him as the screen cuts black.
Production
Inspiration
John Carpenter has admitted that some of the inspiration for the story was drawn from the British film The Trollenberg Terror (1958), which dealt with monsters hiding in the clouds. He has also said that he was inspired by a visit to Stonehenge with his co-writer/producer (and then-girlfriend), Debra Hill. While in England promoting Assault on Precinct 13, Carpenter and Hill visited the site in the late afternoon one day and saw an eerie fog in the distance. 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.[2]
The Fog was part of a two-picture deal with AVCO-Embassy, along with Escape from New York (1981), and was shot on a reported budget of $1 million."[3] Although this was essentially a low budget independent film, Carpenter chose to shoot the movie in the anamorphic format. This gave the film a grander feel for the viewer so it did not seem like a low budget horror film. The picture was filmed from April 1979 to May 1979 at Raleigh Studios in Hollywood, California (interior scenes) and at Point Reyes, California (lighthouse scenes).
After viewing a rough cut of the film, John Carpenter was dissatisfied with the results. Recalling the experience, Carpenter commented "It was terrible. I had a movie that didn't work, and I knew it in my heart".[4] Carpenter subsequently added the prologue with Mr. Machen (John Houseman) telling ghost stories to fascinated children by a campfire. The name "Machen" is a reference to British horror fantasist Arthur Machen. Carpenter added several other new scenes and re-shot others in order to make the film more comprehensible, more frightening, and gorier. Carpenter and Debra Hill have said the necessity of a re-shoot became especially clear to them after they realized that The Fog would have to compete with horror films that had high gore content.[5]
Approximately one-third of the finished film is the newer footage.
Casting
Cast as the female lead was Adrienne Barbeau, Carpenter's then-wife, who appeared in Someone's Watching Me!. Tom Atkins, a friend of Barbeau's, was cast as Nick Castle, a character named after another of Carpenter's collaborators. The Fog was Atkins' first appearance in a Carpenter film. He would go on to appear in Carpenter's next film, Escape from New York and Halloween III: Season of the Witch, which was produced and scored by Carpenter.[6]
Jamie Lee Curtis appeared as Elizabeth. Commenting on the role and on appearing in another of Carpenter's films, she said "That's what I love about John. He's letting me explore different aspects of myself. I'm spoiled rotten now. My next director is going to be almost a letdown".[7]
Reception
The film was greeted with mixed reviews when it was initially released, but it was a commercial success. Roger Ebert commented in his review that "This isn't a great movie but it does show great promise from Carpenter".[8] It is now generally considered to be, as Carpenter once called it, "a minor horror classic". Carpenter himself stated that this is not his overall favorite film due to re-shoots and low production values. This is one of the reasons he agreed to the 2005 remake (see below).
Novelization
In the same year as the movie was released, a novelization of it with the same name was published as well, written by Dennis Etchison.
Cast
Remake
The film was remade under the direction of Rupert Wainwright with a screenplay by Cooper Layne and starring Tom Welling and Maggie Grace. Though based on the concept of Carpenter and Hill's original screenplay, the remake was a "teen horror film." Green-lit by Revolution Studios with just eighteen pages of script written, the film was nearly universally panned for the shallow plot and poor acting. As of January 2006, the film has a Rotten Tomatoes rating of 5%.
References
- ^ http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/1007617-fog
- ^ Gilles Boulenger, John Carpenter Prince of Darkness, (Los Angeles, Silman-James Press, 2003), pp.116, ISBN 1-879505-67-3
- ^ Boulenger, pp. 115
- ^ Boulenger, pp. 118
- ^ Audio commentary by John Carpenter and Debra Hill in The Fog, 2002 special edition DVD.
- ^ MattFini's Halloween Top 10 Lists: Ghost Stories!
- ^ Paul Scanlon, 'THE FOG': A SPOOK RIDE ON FILM[1]; last accessed November 17, 2007
- ^ Roger Ebert, review of The Fog[2]; last accessed November 17, 2007
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