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The Fog - The old 1980 version, not the 2005 do-over
One of my old favorite horror movies is The Fog (1980). Written and directed by John Carpenter in his early days, it featured scream two scream queens, Adrienne Barbeau and a newcomer (then) Jamie Lee Curtis. In addition Jamie’s mother, Janet Leigh is in there, as is Hal Holbrook as a haunted minister and John Houseman as an old sailer telling scary stories to kids in the dark. Carpenter wrote the excellent, minimalist, creepy piano music (the entire soundtrack) himself and only used about 10 notes and a couple chords. It’s a fine ghost story about a small town in northern California, that’s being haunted by ghosts of a ship crew from a century before. The story is loosely (very loosely) based on a true event when town people in Salinas lured a fog bound ship onto rocks so they could steal the gold it was carrying. The movie version of the story was filmed around Point Reyes and its terrific lighthouse, a “dark and stormy” place that lends itself to a spooky story. It draws inspiration from Poe and Lovecraft and features mainly unseen evil.
Lacking anything particularly interesting to watch tonight, I noticed that SyFy was showing the 2005 remake of The Fog. I’m generally wary of remakes, which often add characters, change plot lines, but try to cash in on the fame of an old movie. In this case, the crew of the remake stayed quite close to the original, being a nearly shot by shot do-over, using similar dialog and better special effects. It’s amazing, however, how someone can do that and still make such a worse movie.
The old one is low budget, simple FX (mainly fog machines and old-timey “trick photography”), dicey production values….a home-made movie that succeeds because, generally a ghost movie is better when you never see the ghost. The camera work is delightfully simple and to the point but it uses a wide screen to dwarf the characters and create this windy, foggy place that’s just right for ghosts. The newer one has better effects, more production values, more creeps and a larger cast but it's just awful in spite of that. It also wasn’t filmed at the Point Reyes Lighthouse, which is practically a character in the old version.
My hat’s off to John Carpenter, who didn’t know he was competing with a later version of his own movie, but still beat it by a long margin. We don’t generally think of horror movie directors as auteurs, but, in this case it works.
One of my old favorite horror movies is The Fog (1980). Written and directed by John Carpenter in his early days, it featured scream two scream queens, Adrienne Barbeau and a newcomer (then) Jamie Lee Curtis. In addition Jamie’s mother, Janet Leigh is in there, as is Hal Holbrook as a haunted minister and John Houseman as an old sailer telling scary stories to kids in the dark. Carpenter wrote the excellent, minimalist, creepy piano music (the entire soundtrack) himself and only used about 10 notes and a couple chords. It’s a fine ghost story about a small town in northern California, that’s being haunted by ghosts of a ship crew from a century before. The story is loosely (very loosely) based on a true event when town people in Salinas lured a fog bound ship onto rocks so they could steal the gold it was carrying. The movie version of the story was filmed around Point Reyes and its terrific lighthouse, a “dark and stormy” place that lends itself to a spooky story. It draws inspiration from Poe and Lovecraft and features mainly unseen evil.
Lacking anything particularly interesting to watch tonight, I noticed that SyFy was showing the 2005 remake of The Fog. I’m generally wary of remakes, which often add characters, change plot lines, but try to cash in on the fame of an old movie. In this case, the crew of the remake stayed quite close to the original, being a nearly shot by shot do-over, using similar dialog and better special effects. It’s amazing, however, how someone can do that and still make such a worse movie.
The old one is low budget, simple FX (mainly fog machines and old-timey “trick photography”), dicey production values….a home-made movie that succeeds because, generally a ghost movie is better when you never see the ghost. The camera work is delightfully simple and to the point but it uses a wide screen to dwarf the characters and create this windy, foggy place that’s just right for ghosts. The newer one has better effects, more production values, more creeps and a larger cast but it's just awful in spite of that. It also wasn’t filmed at the Point Reyes Lighthouse, which is practically a character in the old version.
My hat’s off to John Carpenter, who didn’t know he was competing with a later version of his own movie, but still beat it by a long margin. We don’t generally think of horror movie directors as auteurs, but, in this case it works.