Watch This offers movie recommendations inspired by new releases, premieres, current events, or occasionally just our own inscrutable whims. Because it’s Horror Week at The A.V. Club, we’re highlighting movies featuring major stars of the genre.
The Fog (1980)
John Carpenter never directed a sequel to Halloween, despite contributing to Halloween II and Halloween III as a producer, writer, and/or composer. But he did follow up his slasher masterpiece by reuniting with top-tier Final Girl Jamie Lee Curtis for The Fog, another movie about a silent, sinister force creeping through a small town over the course of a few days. In doing so, Carpenter upped his scream-queen ante: He not only minted another genre star in top-billed Adrienne Barbeau (later of Creepshow, Swamp Thing, and Carpenter’s own Escape From New York) but called back to a proto-slasher by casting Psycho star (and Curtis’ mom) Janet Leigh in a supporting role.
The mood of The Fog is even quieter than the slow build of Halloween, right down to the introduction of its lead actor. Barbeau’s smooth voice precedes her, flowing over a few scenes before it becomes clear that the disc jockey she’s playing—who broadcasts local weather updates from a lighthouse—is one of the movie’s main characters. Carpenter’s careful scene-setting also includes gorgeous nighttime cinematography from Dean Cundey and an opening campfire story that offers context for the film’s style alongside a quick, elegant primer on what’s supposed to be lurking within that fog.
The supernatural threat coincides with the centennial of coastal California’s Antonio Bay. As townsfolk prepare to celebrate, the fog brings in the ghosts of sailors who were murdered by the town’s founders a century earlier, out for the blood of their oppressors’ descendants. Though the ghost story is well-conceived and the figures cut a striking figure in all that eerie, glowy fog, they can’t help but appear a little nebulous compared to original-recipe Michael Myers. These creepy ghost-zombie hybrids are missing the sense of immediate corporeal danger he provoked. Still, the film’s subtext has aged well, with scenes of town officials proudly commemorating a heritage that’s bloodier and more malicious than anyone is willing to admit.
Curtis, in only her second film, graduates from responsible babysitter to fearless hitchhiker. She brings an instant sense of personality to her first scene with Tom Atkins, who plays the Antonio Bay local she gets involved with on her way through town, and plenty of vulnerability when she has to, say, react to a corpse momentarily rising during its autopsy. Barbeau, too, exudes an easy authority and clear-mindedness that makes her later expressions of terror more effective. As ever, Carpenter and longtime collaborator Debra Hill steer their female characters away from simple exploitation. Curtis literally takes the steering wheel during one climactic sequence.
The Fog almost feels like an alternate universe Halloween sequel, following Carpenter’s abandoned idea to take the franchise in an anthology direction; the director even has Atkins investigating a creepy mystery with a younger woman who inexplicably takes an instant sexual interest in him, two years before Halloween III: Season Of The Witch. Compared to the many pedestrian returns of Michael Myers, the movie makes a strong case that charismatic pros like Curtis and Barbeau (and masters like Carpenter, Hill, and Cundey) might be more valuable assets to the genre than any iconic bogeyman.
Availability: The Fog is available to rent or purchase from Amazon, Google Play, YouTube, and Microsoft.
31 Comments
I love this movie even more than Halloween, and I love Halloween. The Fog is a more classical ghost story in structure and execution, which was deliberate on Carpenter’s part; he was apparently forced to add some of the more gory shots at the insistence of the studio, which was looking at the excesses of some of the post-Halloween slasher/horror films and felt The Fog needed more of that.John Houseman’s cameo at the beginning sets the scene brilliantly. The simple piano score in the background beautifully underscores his story, which (as noted) gives a lot of back story simply and effectively, avoiding the info dump trap. While Curtis is obviously the ‘name’ (along with her mother, and the two are both really good), it’s Barbeau’s Stevie Wayne who anchors the film. The scenes at the beginning, where she switches from ‘Stevie Wayne, night light’ on the radio to just plain Stevie – a single mom who’s wondering if she made the right move in relocating to Antonio Bay, and who joshes good-naturedly with the local meteorologist – are very effective in establishing the character.It’s also that comparatively rare thing, a horror film with four strong, effective, non-stereotyped female characters (in addition to Curtis, Barbeau, and Leigh, there’s Nancy Loomis as Sandy, who pairs well with Leigh; I love Leigh’s exasperated ‘You’re the only person I know who can make “Yes, ma’am” sound like “Screw you”.’). I’d also add a fifth, Regina Waldon as Mrs. Kobritz, who does her best to protect Andy (she shouldn’t have answered the door, though). Compared with the male characters in the film, who are largely ineffective at dealing with what’s happening, the women come off as the most sensible and resilient characters.There are a handful of nice classical horror allusions: we hear references to Whateley Point and Arkham Reef (from H.P. Lovecraft, specifically ‘The Dunwich Horror’, although he used Arkham a lot), and Houseman’s character is Mr. Machen, probably a reference to British horror/mystic/supernatural writer Arthur Machen (best known for the classic ‘The Great God Pan’). Atkins’s character is named Nick Castle, the name of the actor who played Michael Myers in Halloween; the coroner is Dr. Phibes (a nod to the character Vincent Price played in two horror films); and there’s a reference to Bodega Bay, the name of the town where Hitchcock’s The Birds is set.
There’s also a character called Dan O’Bannon, named for Carpenter’s Dark Star buddy!
I don’t mind the bits of grue, as they keep the movie from floating away on the moodiness of its ghost story.
What I really like, though, is how utterly Seventies the movie is when it comes to casual sex — not just with Jamie Lee Curtis jumping into bed with trucker Tom Atkins five minutes after meeting him, but Adrienne Barbeau’s flirtatious back and forth with the local weather station guy strongly implying she’s sizing him up as a possible bedmate….assuming she can find a babysitter! It’s a welcome change from Halloween’s (possibly unintentional) Puritanical streak when it comes to sex, and I wonder if Carpenter didn’t include it for just that reason.OTOH, in what universe do priests have grandchildren?
Depends on the denomination, surely.
Evan Waters, he’s called “Father” rather than “Reverend” or “Vicar” — only Roman Catholics call their clergy that, and they’re big on celibacy and being married to the Church.
I always assumed the original Father Malone left the church because he didn’t feel worthy of it after, you know, all the murders. It’s not the mob, you’re allowed to leave.
I always thought the autopsy scene was straight out of a different film ( Halloween). More a ghost story then the usual sort of thing. Halloween, Season of the Witch, and The Fog make a nice set.I grew up in SF and remember taking trips to that part of the California coast and even that lighthouse. It brings back old memories.
My wife and I visited that lighthouse when we lived in California, and I didn’t realize beforehand that it was the one from The Fog. My wife teased me because I got all giddy when I saw it. We also took some trips to Mendocino, and it really is surprising how fast the fog can come off the ocean.
I love this movie. It has such great horror movie ambiance. Also I love the decision to emphasize how sexy Adrienne Barbeau’s VOICE is, and not her other assets.
“Her voice?? Pffft!!!” – Wes Craven
There is nothing not sexy about Adrienne Barbeau
I think her poster from the 70s (the Golden Age of posters) is my favorite. It’s her facial expression (seriously). There’s nothing come hither about it. Instead she seems to be saying “yeah I’m in my underwear, so?”
Her, um, other assets are referenced in a nice exchange between two of the sailors on the Sea Grass, when one of them says he’d like to meet her, and another says he saw her once at the supermarket. ‘Yeah?’ prompts the first guy. ‘You would like to meet her,’ is the response.
Adrienne Barbeau is what makes us want to be John Carpenter.The Coupe De Villes is what doesn’t.
Nick Castle was a solid keyboardist (besides also being Michael Myers). Vocals were not Carpenter’s strong suit, granted.
Ah The Fog. I adore this not very good movie, its lovely cast, its atmosphere, its ridiculously over the top pitch (attack of slasher leper pirate zombie ghosts!), its johncarpenterism. It so disappointingly unmemorable and so attaching and cool because carpenter is so good at making you want to care about stuff.My biggest disappointment is the same as in all fog-related horror tales. Fogs are eerie. They give a good sense of supernatural menace. But… they always end up simply concealing a less abstract threat (six-legged dinosaurs, red-eyed pirates, forgotten medieval communities, etc) which reduce them to mere smoke curtains for slashy slashy bity bity baddies. It’s a frustration. I always hope that the sense of loss and disorientation to become the threat itself, a white equivalent of Lynch’s darkness. I suppose that feeling is hard to pinpoint, capture and restitute. It keeps circling back to a monster to hide or show. I still wait for some unexpected lightning-in-a-bottle there.
The opening scenes are my favorite part. Weird shit happening around town, followed by the rapid introduction of a sprawling ensemble cast – it’s such lean, efficient filmmaking. The first few appearances of the fog-creatures are also pretty memorable. It loses steam as it goes along, though. And it doesn’t really have an ending – it just kind of stops.
This doesn’t quite hit the highs of The Thing or Halloween, but that ghost story atmosphere is so damn strong. It’s one I always enjoy watching.
Like everyone else who’s replied so far, I also love this movie. Of course I recognize its flaws, the main one being that it doesn’t always make sense. But this is true of many of my favorite movies, so it bothers me not a whit. The atmosphere, the score, the Houseman story (which I can practically recite verbatim), the jump scares, as when Hal Holbrook discovers the diary, or when he lunges out of the dark confessional, the cast – it’s all very trés bien. I tend to watch it every spring, on or around [Houseman voice] The Twenty-First Of April.This past spring, my family and another family had a plan to drive down the Pacific coast, and I had a few of the Fog locations on the itinerary. But of course a certain pandemic got in the way of this pilgrimage. Someday!
The Point Reyes lighthouse is really worth the trip. It’s lovely, even without a ghost chasing Adrienne Barbeau across the roof.
I believe it! We will make that trip one day, fingers crossed.I interviewed Adrienne Barbeau once, for a Random Roles piece intended for this very website. They were having an ownership or personnel change or something, and it never happened. But, just for anyone who cares, this is what she said about her DJ character:“There was a disc jockey in New York; I guess she
must have been there in the Sixties, because I got there in ’65, named Allison
Steele, and when I read the script originally, I could hear her voice. She had
that [voice drops an octave] “This is Stevie Wayne…” She was “This is Allison
Steele, the Night Bird,” or whatever she was called. I can’t remember. But I
sort of incorporated the memory of her into what I was doing.”It was great to actually hear Stevie Wayne’s voice talking to me over the phone, let me tell you!
That sounds terrifying. What if she heard me swooning? What if I tried to say something and instead I just made a Warner Bros sounds effect like an old fashioned horn honking? Did you get to ask her about her role in The Thing?
I did. According to the IMDb, she’s done at least three computer voices in sci-fi movies, The Thing, Demolition Man and Judge Dredd, so I asked her about all three. All she said about The Thing was “John must have hired me because he knew my voice,” and she didn’t remember much about the other two.I must say, she was an incredibly sweet lady, a real pleasure to talk to.
Adrienne Barbeau had the best breasts in the history of the world.
I love the fan theory (which I am 99% sure I did not invent) that Jamie Lee Curtis’s character in this movie is Laurie from Halloween, traumatized and on the run and using a fake name
“My real name is Laurie, and I am having A WEEK, let me tell ya!”
“the director even has Atkins investigating a creepy mystery with a
younger woman who inexplicably takes an instant sexual interest in him”That’s a super old trope though. Read through old sci-fi stories and it happens in at least a third of them if not more. Older men getting together with younger women has only really become a society wide taboo in this country within the last 20-25 years, before that it was pretty common.
I saw the Fog in the theater in 1980, I was 6 years old! (My family took me to see Orca 77, Jaws 2 78 and Dracula 79 which also played Christoper Lee Dracula as a double feature.)I love horror movies and loved the original fog so much. It was a fun movie and deserves a lot more love than it gets.
This Halloween I made foam grave marker boxes to hide the various fog machines in my front yard cemetery display. For the epitaphs I chose Captain Blake and Father Malone to honor this film (I also made a fog chiller which I christened with Jack Torrance (1980 was quite the year for horror!).
I remember seeing this movie as a kid and freaked me out! I hated going anywhere that had fog! Lol!! Still do now as an adult. I love ghost stories like this that has that feeling of dread and eerines to it. I think supernatural movies like this are much more scarier than some slasher movies that rely too much on gore to “scare” the audience. The remake of this was so laughable and terrible. I don’t understand how it ever got made. Ugh.
Only got around to seeing this quite recently, during the early part of the lockdown— it is, or was very recently, on Shudder. Absolutely terrific. A classy approach to reproducing a spooky campfire ghost story on screen. Viewing it as such even helps paper over the plot quasi-hole where the story can’t quite make up its mind about whether the ghosts are targeting certain individuals for ancestral revenge or whether they’re just attacking townspeople indiscriminately.
Brilliantly shot too, with the deep darks of the era only enhancing the mood. More movies should be like this.