John Carpenter's 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 released by Avco Embassy and distributed by MGM.
| John Carpenter's The Fog | |
|---|---|
| File:Thefog1980.jpg | |
| Directed by | John Carpenter |
| Written by | John Carpenter Debra Hill (screenplay) |
| Produced by | Charles B. Bloch Debra Hill Barry Bernardi Pegi Brotman |
| Starring | Adrienne Barbeau Jamie Lee Curtis Janet Leigh John Houseman |
| Cinematography | Dean Cundey |
| Edited by | Charles Bornstein Tommy Lee Wallace |
| Music by | John Carpenter |
| Distributed by | MGM |
Release dates | February 8, 1980 |
Running time | 89 min. |
| Language | English |
Plot
The movie is a classic ghost story that takes place in a Northern California fishing town called Antonio Bay (real ___location Inverness, California and Pt. Reyes lighthouse). The town is about to celebrate its Centenary when mysterious events, including the gruesome murders of three fishermen, accompany a strange, glowing fog that spreads over land and sea. The local minister, Father Malone, discovers the diary of his grandfather (who was also the town's minister), which contains a dark secret unknown to the town's current inhabitants.
The diary reveals that six of the founders of Antonio Bay (including Malone's grandfather) deliberately sunk 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 the rocks. Everyone aboard the ship perished. The six conspirators were motivated both by greed and by 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).
Re-Shoots, Critical and Popular Reception
The movie relies mainly on atmosphere for its chills. John Carpenter did extensive re-shoots of the movie (almost the equivalent of a second film), because he was not satisfied with the original result. The film did not get good critical reviews when it was initially released, but it was a commercial success. 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 favourite film due to re-shoots and low production values. This is one of the reasons he agreed to the 2005 remake (see below).
Cast
| Actor | Role |
|---|---|
| Adrienne Barbeau | Stevie Wayne |
| Jamie Lee Curtis | Elizabeth Solley |
| Janet Leigh | Kathy Williams |
| John Houseman | Mr. Machen |
| Tom Atkins | Nick Castle |
| James Canning | Dick Baxter |
| Charles Cyphers | Dan O'Bannon |
| Nancy Kyes | Sandy Fadel |
| Ty Mitchell | Andy Wayne |
| Hal Holbrook | Father Malone |
| John F. Goff | Al Williams |
| George Flower | Tommy Wallace |
| Darwin Joston | Dr. Phibes |
Taglines
- What you can't see won't hurt you... it'll kill you!
- Lock your doors. Bolt your windows. There's something in THE FOG!
- When the fog rolls in... the terror begins!
- It is night. It is cold. It is coming.
- JOHN CARPENTER, who startled the world with "Halloween," now brings you the ultimate experience in terror.
- What In The Living Hell Is Out There?
Trivia
- Bennett, the assistant to Father Malone in the opening scenes, is played by an uncredited John Carpenter.
- Characters Nick Castle, Dan O'Bannon, Tommy Wallace are named after John Carpenter's real-life collaborators from previous films.
- The band mentioned on the radio in an early scene, "The Coupe DeVilles", is a real band featuring director John Carpenter. Their only "notable" song was Big Trouble in Little China from the film of the same name, also directed by Carpenter.
- Adrienne Barbeau's last line, "...look for the fog...", echoes the last line from The Thing from Another World (1951), "Watch the skies." John Carpenter later remade that film as The Thing.
- The name of the character played by Darwin Joston, the coroner "Dr. Phibes", is a reference to the character Dr. Anton Phibes played by Vincent Price in two cult horror favorites (The Abominable Dr. Phibes and Dr. Phibes Rises Again).
- Some of the place names mentioned early in the film, including "Whately" (the main character of "The Dunwich Horror") and "Arkham" are references to the works of H.P. Lovecraft.
- After a rough cut, the movie appeared to be much too short for a theatrical release (about 80 minutes). John Carpenter subsequently added the prolog 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.
- Although this was essentially a low budget independent film, John Carpenter chose to shoot the movie in anamorphic widescreen Panavision. This gave the film a grander feel for the viewer so it did not seem like a low budget horror film.
- John Carpenter admitted that his inspiration for the story was 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 1977 visit to Stonehenge with his co-writer/producer (and then-girlfriend), Debra Hill. While visiting the site in the late afternoon one day, Carpenter and Hill saw an eerie fog in the distance.
- Blake, the lead ghost, was played by makeup specialist Rob Bottin. When Bottin asked for the job, John Carpenter asked him to "stand up". Bottin then expected Carpenter to say, "...and get out!" When Carpenter saw that Bottin was a very large man, which was needed for the Blake character, he was hired.
- Interestingly enough Adrienne Barbeau and Jamie Lee Curtis, the leads, do not appear together in any scenes. Jamie Lee Curtis and her mother Janet Leigh do not appear together until the final scene.
- The film is not related to the 1975 James Herbert novel of the same name.
2005 remake
The film was remade under the direction of Rupert Wainwright with a screenplay by Cooper Layne. 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. As of January 2006, the film has a Rotten Tomatoes rating of 7% and resides at #89 on the Internet Movie Database Bottom 100.